Here in San Diego, California, we’re 3 weeks and 1 day into our state’s stay-at-home order. It’s the longest 3 weeks I’ve ever experienced. Is it that way for you too? I laugh at all the memes describing the 5 years of April 2020 because it feels so real. We’ve even jumped on the zoom wagon and had a zoom meeting with our school teaching team. It was great to see all the faces that we are missing so much these days. When this is over, the reunion with our students will be joyous.
When Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang used to come regularly to the United States, and stayed at our house, he had us do standing practice every morning. I’m not and have never been a fan of standing practice. I recognize the importance but don’t like being still for that long. And it was long - he had us stand usually for an hour, sometimes more. He would do corrections at the beginning but then it was just standing, him standing with us, standing for the rest of the hour. Sometimes I tried to get out of it by saying I had to go to work and he would say “call them and tell them you will be there later”. And I did.
This time of quarantine reminds me of those standing practice days. For me, I went through stages during the hour. At first it felt good to settle down. Then the aches and pains and tensions started to reveal themselves, then I hated it. Sometimes I experienced disbelief that he was asking me to stand for this amount of time - what good could it possibly do to stand for an hour?? Sometimes I wanted to just stop and walk away. Sometimes I wanted to scream. But I just stayed with it, because he was my teacher and to do anything else would disrespect him and forfeit the lesson. Eventually, I would come to a kind of acceptance of my situation, I would calm my mind and work on my posture, and the hour would (finally) pass.
For me, this is like those times when I was asked to be still. I am feeling those same stages of agitation, of wanting to race to the beach and defy the order and run into the water and remember the joy of moving freely through the world. But now is not that time. To save ourselves from this, we have to be still for a while longer.
This is a time to go within. A time to deepen our own practice. A time to do self correction and reflection. We have trained for this for years, and we have the skills to do it. Our teachers have taught us well, and they taught us that taiji is not simply a martial art, but is a way of life. This is the time to apply those lessons.
We can do this. If I can stand until my teacher says stop, we can do this, for however long we need to do it.
Stay healthy, stay safe, stay inside!
Allison