Life in Motion
Searching for the feeling
Wujimon wrote an interesting post on how tai chi is taught through the transmission of touch. The lessons learnt from these corrections normally far outweigh any other class room exposure I’ve had. I especially remember the “don’t look down” criteria. I have a tendency to look down to check the posture alignment but was always told to “feel” the posture alignment rather than judging it with my own eyes.
So one night, during a standing posture training, the spine suddenly just lengthens and there was this rush of heat, what wujimon refers to as “the burn”. And then I understood what correct alignment feels like. However, since that experience, I’ve been trying to reproduce that feeling. It’s difficult. I haven’t been able to reproduce it as intensely as the first time. And then I find myself frustrated over not being able to do it. The training boils down to “searching for the feeling”.
I spend more time searching for the feeling and forgot that I must just allow the feeling to manifest itself. Self-correct based on feeling does have this disadvantage. So, what did I do? I stopped doing tai ji for a while, and went back to it when I “forgot” about the feeling. 
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3 comments for “Searching for the feeling”
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hehe.. it *is* really hard to reproduce the feeling and I agree that is one of the disadvantages of this method as it could seem forced. I went thru a similar thing of hitting a plateau and for a while, I was so fustrated that I refused to do single handed silk reeling b/c I could not get that feeling again.
However, once you’ve experienced the feeling, you’ll always know in the back of your mind that you’ve had a glimpse.
I do get different kinds of feeling depending on the style, which is weird. With chen, I tend to feel much more grounded and rooted feeling, whereas with yang, I tend to feel a “connected, silking” feeling. I think in some form or another, I’ve searched for the feeling which may end up being a bad thing as I could be focusing too much on the light instead of the journey
I won’t call mine a plateau, since that would imply some elevated stage… which in my case, i think it’s called “the ground”!
Thanks for sharing wujimon. i did wonder at some point if that feeling was just a one off! some random guest appearance of my own personal “teacher”!
[...] Posture is important in Tai Chi. The alignment from head to toe is important to achieve the “connection” with the ground so that strength can be channelled properly throughout the body. To get proper alignment, I’ve relied on my own eyes, other people’s eyes, my teacher’s eyes, and ultimately, my own feeling. [...]