1 Year Already--Taiji, of course!

I can't believe it but yesterday, 5/14, was my 1-year anniversary of taking taiji lessons!  I think back to the day I started taiji.  After that first class I realized that this style was going to completely change the way I thought about standing, moving, walking, and, well, everything! 

My first taiji homework assignment was to learn to stand in wu chi, practice transferring weight from one leg to the other, and if I could, bow stance and then bow walking.  I remember practicing the bow walk and thinking how foreign it was...how it made no sense.  I know I was really critical of myself because I wanted everything to be perfect right away!  But practicing taiji also brings about patience, at least for me, most of the time! 

By the end of the course (end of June, 2007), I had quite a bit of stuff to practice over the summer class hiatus (my instructor, Bob, has other summer non-wushu projects that he does for income).  I also had a 2-disc instructional DVD of Bob doing the Bow 52 Form (his form).  When I could, I practiced the stuff I knew with the DVD but there was one part of the form that I could never get past no matter how many times I watched it:  deflect down, parry and thrust.    Now it seems so simple!

Here's a gif of the deflect down, parry and punch that I was having trouble with!

At the end of September, classes started up again.  Yeah!  It was really good to have instruction again because my posture wasn't quite as good as it could have been.  I learned more of the form from the DVD and followed along with the more advanced taiji people with the first half of the form.  Bob said it was obvious that I was the only one who really practiced outside of class.  Hey, but I've always been that way:  practice makes perfect! 

At the beginning of November, 2007, the beginning taiji class was cancelled due to lack of people signing up and I was then switched into QiGong.  "Piece of cake!" I thought...boy, was I wrong!  Standing alone for 20 minutes learning the moves was just "killer" on my quads!  But QiGong really made me step back from the movements of taiji and concentrate on breathing and qi cultivation.  I'm glad now that the beginning taiji class was cancelled! 

Bob then said that I could join the Advanced Taiji class, too.  I really stepped up the homework and learned the entire form from the DVD by the end of December, 2007. 

In January, 2008, I then taught myself to learn the form on the right side (mirror image from the DVD) because Bob believes in balancing yin and yang so doing the form in either direction achieves that end.  I had known some of the movements from class but it was only the first half of the form.  I was definately lagging behind the others in class because I didn't know the second half of the form going to the right.  But I did it and now it's quite natural.   More recently, I had to drop Taiji in April because of time conflicts but Bob changed the class time to meet my schedule and I've been attending again starting this month! 

I really love taiji!  I know I am far from having "good taiji" yet I continue to pick up on posture subtleties in class to bring home and relearn or work on in order to make my taiji just a little better.  I know that taiji is a life-long journey yet sometimes I get impatient because of my age (old!) and I feel like I'm running out of time to learn everything I want to learn.  Does anybody ever feel that way, too, about something they're passionate about?