Wriggling within the skin of the form (like cats do when one grabs their paw) – sinew. The layers of body tissue are connected yet detatched, so that they all move around each other.

Marble Movement - endless spherical undulation

The moment of stillness and lightness at the apex and at the bottom.

Waves flowing through and around each other (up and down creates around; always different – everywhere, gathering at and radiating from the center) – shimmering back and forth like two stones thrown into a still pool in proximity to each other. Where the waves have passed toward and through each other, the water is completely still.

Things are not always as one thinks they should be. Employ the idea of contraries and reversals.

The T’ai Chi is round, so it always brings you back to yourself.

The vertical alignment in harmony with the gravitational flow.

Umbilical. T’ai Chi practice can bring one to the root of oneself – to the center so that all processes and relationships emanate from and gather there.

The gateway. Because we are a conduit of the life force, we can live in the continuous present of time continuum. This presence is a continuous gateway of ones relationship to everything.

Action is stimulated by an external-internal impetus; like music moving us to dance. The impulse stirs the stillness or potential of gravity (the vertical plane), creating wave like undulations that move us by moving through us.

The bouncing ball rises to the still lightness at the top (where the up and the down forces neutralize), letting the hand come up with the upward momentum of the ball, allowing the descent to be induced by gravity before coming down behind it (dribbling). This unites the up and the down. 

The magnetic dynamic of by-polar relationships.

Emptyness is the first impulse, surrounded by stillness.

The gravitational force is the plumb line, through which the verticality aligns itself.

Spinning backward – the energy flows back to the straight leg, and that is the limit. It’s continuance becomes its other.

Throwing away T’ai Chi after almost 25 years of it, feeling the freedom of what I saw in it that first day. It was very important for me to embrace double weightedness within single weightedness. I believe that if the rules are too stringently applied, one gets led astray. It lacks humor and balance. Single without double is double weighted (stagnant). Through the polarization of polarity, unity is born. The madness of duplicity will drive one to it.

Activate the peripheral vision, which seats and houses the focal vision. The peripheral is the yin aspect of seeing.

Stretching. There are no layers and levels to knowing, to being and becoming, though the pattern of evolution might lead one to perceive things in this way. One starts with the seed root, and everything one knows and learns and does becomes an integral part of an expanding whole.

Moving within the slipstream of ones own movement.

Activate the slip stream of ones own movement from behind. The physical goes out, and the energy spins in backward.

The form must transcend itself to the truth of movement inherent within the self and in all things, and that movement is always relational.

That which is sent out is an echo of what is within.

The act of yielding fills the empty space of the opponent.

Intersecting with points in space to create a continuum.

Soft – no power. Power does not belong to us; we are vessels through which it flows. Softness allows the air to come down, contained within the body, moving, silent, continuous and everywhere. The void is the strongest power because it absorbs all.

There is equality because of relatedness, not because it is the same.

Allow the stance to slide under the body on the light releasing bounce of air and energy (where things assimilate) at the points of transition, to express energy (in a hydraulic manner) interiorly and exteriorly.

When something begins to work for you, it tends to become a “trick”. Look for the error in the structure and basics. The feeling and movement is everything, and that is what the study is about. But to persist in following feelings that are at odds with the basics is to live in a fools paradise. It is difficult to give up the things that make one feel safe and comfortable even though it becomes stagnant with time. Todays illumination is tomorrows dogma.

Like drawing a string through a labyrinth, because coming back is where you’re going to.

Counter turns and moves in all dimensions at all times.

Moving fulcrum

The power is released when the movement is interupted by an obstruction.

A dream: (1998)
I am standing in a field at the edge of a forest at night. I want to move through the forest but I am afraid because it is dark and I may bump into the trees. I sense that if I adhere to the continuous space in which the trees exist it will be OK. I run through the forest at speed, not attached to (or avoiding) the trees, and move through the space without effort or incident – joyously.

Oscillating rhythm of movement and air.

The true adversary is oneself.

A dream:
I am standing on the earth. I begin to bounce up and down on the surface, keeping continuous contact with the ground. The initial movements are more rapid until the earth under my feet begins to move with the rhythm of my motion. As the movement becomes deeper and more synchronized, I slow down my motion and the whole surface of the world is undulating (like an enormous trampoline).

All positions seem to be final – to end, but are actually fulfilling and recognizing themselves.

The gravitational field establishes the vertical alignment. This force of gravity, united with the force of impulse within onself, is the generative sourse of movement. It is set in motion around the spine through the rotational differentiation of the spatial relation within the stance. This makes the movement of the exercise both circular (external) and rotating (interior).

The still point is hollow – a vortex

The other side is the shadow.

All the textures and layers within the body are transparent. They flow, roll over and around each other.

One is the ground and space as well as the object of motion; and the central axis of its spatial rotation, passing each other by moving through each other.

The counter-movement of muscle and bone.

A backward journey toward the inside.

Metronome form (technique) and moving form (spirit), where imbalances are counter balanced as in nature, in change, impulse and encounter.

Let fused elements separate, but touch.

I had to sense the hint of the next place over, to know the known places better. Knowledge becomes stronger when united with other knowing. And another level of integration becomes necessary. Start again. It’s all about continuing, purposelessly weaving a tapestry of a self.

People fear the primordial, and rush to mask it with any conventional script.

The pivot point of the whole (of which one is a part) is outside the core of ones own body. This connects to the idea (in Images 3), that ones center never passes directly through the center of ones circle. The middle meandering way is the most harmonious; between oneself and the shadow.

If the visual focus is inward with the central, a hub is activated which radiates and draws from and around itself. Movement becomes a continuously spatial imanation and emanation in and around the hub (the space within spaces).

That which gathers empties.

Polar movement. It happens between here and there (inclusively), rather than from here to there.

The boxing practice is there to give presence and authenticity to oneself. Being in life is tempered by annihilation.

Momentum is engendered from the vacuum created by gravity.

Everything must be separate (distinguished) for unification to take place.

There is that weightless moment, when up and down and in and out are neutralized.  Allow gravity begin to descend before coming in behind it; and at the end of descending, continue through to an arcing ascending. This creates syncopated and interrelated arcs in the external movement. The difficulty is maintaining that neutralized weightless apex throughout the compressed and expanded undulations in all their textural variations

Being whole within change; embracing and embraced by, both the inner and the outer space – as one.

Harmonic dissonance

The further out you go brings you closer to your beginning – that moment of inspiration. These turning points are moments of self recognition

On power. There are so many seductions; like unconscious habits, following misconceptions (inevitable) and reinforcing flawed action because of a stubborn need to know, to be right; to have power. Power is not ours, and if we try to possess it or force it – we break, and break the things around us. We are conduits of power. It flows through us and all things – uniting everything. Induce a wave between heaven and the core of the earth.

Interactive stillness – spherical interlocking; counter arcs are generated from impulse rather than intentional active movement.

The movement moves away from itself to be whole.

The self behind the self. About not being seduced by the forward sight – being aware of behind and all around puts one in oneself. To intend in any direction inclines you. This freezes the interior and inhibits the exterior..

The center of gravity under the arches of the feet.

Shadow mind. The shadow mind releases to the inside; fluctuating inside out and outside in; front and back and side to side. Everything is in flux except for before the beginning and after the end. The great middle is always void.

The preoccupation with healing reinforces the illness; the disease is the cure.

There is no distance between here and there.

Outside–inside movement. If the head–mind is central and light enough, the neutralization from the gathered windup allows the legs, body and head to counter spin and counter turn around each other until the vertical axis aligns: and the external movement stops. Then the movement of internal circulation expresses itself. Each is continuously transforming into the other, containing the other within it’s core.

Inbreath outbreath – hands and feet.

We stand on a round rotating and spinning planet in concert with other planets within galaxies in swirling space. That which isn’t contains what is.

Be still and everywhere at once.

Inner and outer space. Open and close from every part of yourself, pulsating with the rhythm of everything.

Everyone knows what it is to lose; and when you win, you take that away from someone else.

© Sam Slutsky. 1983 to 2012.