I'm in just a weird kind of mood and was partly thinking back a couple years to when I was active in a T'ai Chi group.  Was reading up on the Tao yesterday, then saw the blog post here on meditation and it brought all the great T'ai Chi memories back. 

First off, T'ai Chi is an absolutely awesome experience, if you have ever thought about trying T'ai Chi, DO IT!  Oh, and it is NOT an "old person's martial art." More on this later.

Anyway, years before I ever went to a class, I had heard of this moving meditation.  And thought, hmm... I can meditate - which always sounded interesting - but keep moving?  Cool!

Fast forward until about four years ago and I was doing some soul searching, and really wanted to train understand my body. I'd done martial arts before, and had actually wanted to get back into the heavy stuff.  I was starting to get drawn to Jeet Kun Do, and found a teacher, but the way it was worded on his site, I didn't feel qualified.  Before then, my martial art experience had dwindled to remembering a couple blocks. But he did have this T'ai Chi that was open to all skill levels. I wasn't THAT interested in T'ai Chi, but thought I could do that for a while then jump to the Jeet Kun Do.

Well, I went to the class, and it was seriously cool.  Everyone was basically laid back, everyone was really just having a good time.  Very much NOT like the semi-militaristic approach I experienced with Hapkido, Kendo and Tae Kwon Do. (I don't knock them, I did learn a lot from them, but this was still totally different).  People of all ages were there.  Granted there were a large number of older people who were there for the wonderful exercise, but there were quite a few young people too, who were there for the same reasons, and for some of the martial aspects. 

And just an aside, do NOT think that a T'ai Chi master is any kind of push over.  T'ai Chi Chuan is definitely a real martial art.  My teacher was in his late 70s then, and he could still wipe the floor with any of his students.  Seriously amazing man.

So I learned a couple of relaxing exercises which helped a lot more than I expected. I knew I was stressed, but didn't know how bad.

Now fast forward a year. I have now learned the entire Yang style 108 move long version of T'ai Chi Chuan.  I have learned a lot of Push Hands and generally now having a lot of fun taking the 33-36 minutes to go through the form, then spend an hour and a half fine tuning and learning the mirror set.

Now there is a feeling that can come over you when you do this, at least it did for me, where you do a couple of the moves and everything feels perfect. You aren't thinking about the current or next move, you aren't distracted. The joints and muscles feel like flowing sacks of water as you go through the move.  It is an amazing feeling.

Well, one set one day, I got into that groove and I wasn't getting out! Near the end of the set I was feeling like I was outside my body, because my body never felt this good or this coordinated.  I thought, "Wow, I'm really doing this! This is beyond cool!"  Then I hit the harder end piece and got out of that groove, but it was like I was a little drunk from the experience, but in a totally good way.

Some will say it was an endorphin rush or the runner's high, and I tend to agree, but it was weird that it hit really early, like within the first four minutes of the set, and stayed that way for a good twenty.

I have hit that groove a few times since that one experience, but nothing as long as that one time.  I keep thinking how amazing it would be to stay in it for the entire set plus the mirror set.  Gives me good shivers.

And now it has been a couple MORE years since I had to drop the class  due to work restrictions, but now that work has settled down a little, I think I will get back into it. Probably work on my own a bit to remember the moves before getting back to the class, so I won't have to start over, but dropping T'ai Chi was definitely a big regret.