The Dragon's Head Blog: My Tai Chi – a little every day

The first time I practiced Tai Chi I overwhelmed my instructors with questions: why you do it like this, why you do it like that? It took some time for me to understand that perfection of and in the movement is not the goal. I have been patiently taught to imitate, listen, trust, make mistakes, focus on feeling my body and correct myself. So, I started asking fewer and fewer questions and found out how, now or then, answers simply arrive. Meanwhile, Tai Chi started healing my body. Back pain disappeared and right knee hasn’t been creaking anymore.

I felt so good that I decided it was a good time to give a little sister to my first child. She agreed with me, so that soon the belly was between me and Tai Chi. With regret I had to pause and to give up the company of my new friends from whom, even humanly, I was learning so much.

Rebecca was born and, after a few months, the coronavirus came to keep us company. Never discouraged, my Tai Chi friends pointed out that it was still possible for us to practice together, despite isolation. And that’s how, in quarantine, I started practicing again, alone but connected. At the beginning, it seemed arduous, with no one telling or showing me what to do. But after a short while I found myself able to listen to my body talking to me, and to the instructors voices coming out from within and reminding me of tips, advices, meanings and improvements. Suddenly I discovered that Tai Chi is like this: it is movement and energy woven of people capable to remain connected, despite physical distances and loneliness.

Now I try to practice a little every day, maybe clumsily, perhaps disorderly, but I know it doesn’t matter because, as my friends and instructors remind me, “any little bit works”.