Tai Chi Tuesday: Slacklining as Meditation

One of the key elements of Tai Chi is being mindful of what you are doing at that very moment. Mountain climbers have found a way to bring mindfulness into Tai Chi and meditation with a new practice called slacklining.

Slacklining involves stringing a webbed mountain climbing line between two posts or trees just a couple of feet off the ground.

The college students in the video below are doing it for a number of reasons (to impress a possible mate is one), and performers have done it for the thrill. Hardcore mountain climbers have created "highlining," which is stringing line between — you got it — two high points and walking across the crevass.

No matter the reason, however, practitioners all say the same thing: they value the focus, concentration and, yes, meditation required to achieve this skill.

Would you try slacklining for Tai Chi practice or meditation?

Tai Chi Tuesday: Relaxation is the Key

Welcome back to Tai Chi Tuesday.

Here is a tip I have been sharing with my advanced students: it's the meditative relaxation of Tai Chi that makes it a formidable martial art.

Even if you have not reached  the stage of being able to produce Jin, you still gain more power by being relaxed than by being tense.

Also, with Chi, awareness comes the ability of feeling your opponent's intentions before they happen. This makes it much easier to guide an opponent off his /her center in order to counter-attack.

Tai Chi classics say, "Move a thousand pound with four ounces." If we tense our bodies, we already have exceeded the four ounces.