Spring cleaning
by Shang Lee
It’s a Chinese ritual to do spring cleaning just before Chinese New Year, to sweep away the old and get ready for the new. My wife has broken this project into a few weekends, so that we can manage to finish this in time to greet the new year on 26 January 2009.
Now, how I clean is different from how my wife does it. She’ll want to make sure everything is cleaned by a certain time. I just want to find out what have I been hoarding over the last year. She’ll keep changing the water and ticking off the to do list one by one. I will be holding up the old photos and say “wow… maybe we can go there some time again”.
The incompatibility in working styles do create its own conflicts. I guess between the two of us, we managed to get most of the cleaning done while enjoying it as well. Well, I enjoyed bits of it, she was just trying to contain it… 
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Well, in our house, it all started when my wife saw an ad saying that a chain of furniture stores was going out of business. One thing leads another.
On the one hand, I’ve been doing slave labor projects around the house that has been re arranging my practice space on almost a daily basis; but on the other, the Mrs (mine) has turned over a new leaf and we’re throwing out all kinds of stuff.
On the whole, I’m pretty pleased with the way it’s going. After the new furniture arrives and the house gets painted, my practice ought to be able to get back to normal.
In the meantime, I’m doing the taiji form less, and the neigong of the Wu style a lot more; especially zhan zhuang.
Hey Rick, how do you find doing neigong vs the form, now that you’re doing the form less?
How do I find neigung vs tcc now that I’m doing less of the form? Although I am doing the form less often, I think I am getting better more out of it. I’ve been putting a lot of time into standing stake recently. The monkey mind chatter quiets down, and I find that when I’m doing the form, it simply feels more natural to go slowly and smoothly. I’m finding where I was taking about 30 min to do the form before, is taking me around 45 min now and I’m really keeping my mind on what I’m doing.
Another aspect is that where I would sometimes have the tendency to wait until conditions were “just right” before I’d practice, which means I would sometimes not practice at all. I’m finding that with practicing my neigung more regularly, I’m also finding myself making do with conditions to practice the form that may not be optimal, but I’m making do with what I have, and hence perhaps practicing more, overall.
The conclusion I’m heading towards is that while the main practice is the 108 Standard form in my style, the neigung work helps me to become more prepared to get the most out of that form practice. Am I being clear?
Makes perfect sense.
How long do you practise your neigung vs form? how do you allocated your time? is it just alternate days? or you try to cram it all in one session?
[...] hold the water (the force) until it’s ready to be redirected. I found this out while doing my spring cleaning. Tags: push hands, thoughts, [...]
A taiji buddy of mine would always ‘stand’ before ‘playing’ the form, as such, he would normally stand for about 40 mins and then do the form afterward.
I agree with Rick that I do feel neigong work has been very beneficial for me in relation to the form work.
Shang: how about adding the comment subscription plugin ( http://markjaquith.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/subscribe-to-comments-plugin-now-on-wordpresscom/ )?
I do what I have time to do. My first choice is the log form, if I have enough time where I’m not rushing through it. If I have a little time, then it’s the short form. For something in the middle, maybe the short form and some neigung, or maybe no form and more neigung.
I guess I’m not so rigid anymore on what I ‘ought’ to be practicing as long as I’m getting around to everything in a balanced way.
Thanks for the tip wujimon. It looks like a very nifty plugin!