Tai Chi for Peace of Mind

The nature of Our Mind

Our mind can only concentrate on one thing a time, research shows, we may swop tasks quickly seems we are multiple tasking but we just swop attention quickly. And where our attention goes where energy flows. If we don’t pay attention to our body then our body will be neglected, and it is most of us do, we think, our energy goes to our head and too much going on in there, and it gives us a headache 😉

What if we stop thinking? The Little Book of Clear Thinking says, our mind is like a pond, our thinking stirs the pond and mud stirs up and we can’t see where we are and where we are going, we feel lost and confused. The little book’s author interviewed many high performers: what are they thinking before perform and they told him, Nothing. The high performers have trained themselves not to think. If we use the metaphor not thinking, what do we get out? Clear pond, clear vision, right?!

It is not easy for many of us sitting and meditation and thinking nothing but our breath, Tai Chi can hold out mind for other purpose, such purpose will not only strengthening our body but also giving us peace of mind. We all know how important and pleasant it feels when we have no thoughts in mind, it is vast, peace and free.

Tai Chi Mind

Nowadays not many people can have a peaceful ming. How Tai Chi can help us do it? Where do we place our mind when we do Tai Chi? In each of our steps, each step has its own centre and place we need to pay attention to, or we lost our balance then it won’t be proper Tai Chi. Let us using training the hips to be loosed as an example.

In Tai Chi practices, the number one important thing is we are using our waist and hips all the time, they need to be flexible and ready to be used. To free our hips we can use a Tai Chi walk to help us to achieve it.

Once we have tasted this peace of mind, we will never want to turn back.

Feels the Hips

Imagine you are wearing a pair of heavy metal, iron shoes on your feet, you have to walk a mile distance with them, what is the best way to walk? Of course you will have to try without hurting your feet or ankles for you noticed the shoes had reached above your ankle. Similarly you can imagine you are walking in the thick snow which was half way your calves. What is the best way walk, now stand up and walk in these conditions see what way you would naturally choose to walk.

What have you got out from this experience?

If you have sincerely tried, you would properly found your hips are relaxed around your waist, the whole feet and legs are just hang there and allow the hips to pull one by one straight up, not diagonally but a straight vertical upward.

So when we do Tai Chi we try to use hips as our bodily move guide, it leads the whole body, where the body wants to go the hips make the first step, ready for the move and send Qi into the legs and feet. It will be very beneficial if we train ourselves to use Tai Chi walk do our walking, or practise it daily for a few minutes would also help us remain a peaceful mind for a good while. The more we practise it the more we will want to do it and wish we had done it sooner, for it pulls everything together in life for us, helping us centred and relax into the now deeply.