My tai chi teacher says that the art of tai chi, and the philosophy behind it perhaps, is all about harmonizing polarizations. And we always start by harmonizing polarizations in the self. One way to think of polarizations is to think in terms of projections and hollows–places in our self where we are projecting tooContinue reading “Harmonizing Polarizations”
Category Archives: Training Journal
Standing & Push Hands in Canada
Recently I returned from a weeklong training with my teacher in Canada. My friends and training mates J and N were with me, and the three of us got a lot of quality time with our teacher. When people ask me what we practice with our teacher, I tell them it’s tai chi, but itContinue reading “Standing & Push Hands in Canada”
August Evening Practice
Much of my martial arts practice these days is unlearning old habits. Releasing old tensions. I picked up some unhealthy movement patterns over my years training in hard-style martial arts, and I ground these movement patterns into my body over many years often at high impact. Martial artists, over time, can have shoulder problems, hipContinue reading “August Evening Practice”
Welcome to Monday
This week I’m beginning to promote my first qigong class offering in Portland, Energetic Grounding, a Shanti System class I’ll be teaching at a great neighborhood movement studio called Ready Set Grow. I’m writing this post to share my process in doing that. (My big, scary inner-critic is trying to make the process more difficultContinue reading “Welcome to Monday”
Training Journal 9.14.2022
Tonight I trained at Alberta park, the normal place I practice martial arts on Wednesday evenings. My normal training mates weren’t there, so it was just me practicing my stuff, whatever that is. I did my Physical Therapy exercises at the park tonight, then I marched around to songs I played in my earbuds. SometimesContinue reading “Training Journal 9.14.2022”
Michelle Folk Johnson 