Another day and its late again.

The thing I wanted to write about yesterday at some length that I'm going to summarise here is "rising to the challenge". This is how it was phrased in a book I'm currently reading and it is given as a quality of the spirit. I found this quite interesting, largely because I have now realised that I have not considered my spirit or spirituality in some time. It sounds strange doesn't it? I claim to read these books and be trying to understand myself and I have neglected something that many hold at their core.

It is particularly interesting here because it is this quality that I have been seeking and feel that I have lost to a degree, and now I tie this up with something I have been neglecting - most interesting. Convenient too, which implies I have assimilated the text into my current situation and understand it in perhaps a narrower way then was intended - but I think thats no bad thing. Hopefully I can adjust my focus and as I come to understand more I will re-read and get more from it.

This is how it has been with my studies of t'ai chi. I practice movements, observe similarities between yang, chen and lee styles and come to understand what I have been doing and what I haven't. Indeed the first move I learnt some 13 years ago now has far more meaning to me now, and back then I was eager to get to the movements where one kicks and punches and pushes and look cool. This first movement however, where one simply raises ones wrists to shoulder height and lowers them back down to hip height, is one of the early steps in shaolin training. Its a chi-gung exercise designed to excite ones energy. Indeed the monks will practice this one move thousands of times for many months before moving on. A simple move that I still cannot claim that I have mastered.

I find as I read and practice (far too infrequently) that I have not yet learnt to walk, I am still coming to know the extent of what I do not know.

My path feels as though there have been many steps back as well as steps forward, perhaps by leaving these pointers along the way I will make more in the right direction and find my path more quickly when I lose it, as I'm sure I have and will from time to time.