None of These Things is Like the Other

Posted by Amy Baranski
I'd much rather stay home and finish the bag of Fritos I bought yesterday from Safeway on the way home from yoga class than go to day 8 of the 30 day Bikram yoga challenge. Look, Fritos only have three ingredients. You look them up. It's not that bad.

A black and white filter does not make all pictures better.

I didn't mention I'm doing a 30-day Bikram yoga challenge? Yeah, thought I'd top off this month with one more 2-hour activity that I'm committed to doing every day. Somewhere, on some other blog, this would be tagged "white people problems".

In any event, to celebrate my ill-achieved mind-body-centeredness (too many hyphens?) today I'm spending this precious hour before yoga watching a Tai Chi for beginners instructional video, while roasting beets in prepartion for tomorrow's dinner with our neighbors, the Oliver family. Yet, I multitask.

It's just me in the guest room practicing six forms of Tai Chi from a video that's playing very cheesy-lullaby like music. But I will find the value in this video as I almost killed myself yesterday while running from the bank to the library to get it, and then endured shin splints running to yoga class while schleping my yoga gear down Broadway on one shoulder with library books on the other. Maybe that pain in my spine is resentment embodied for not being able to eat my Fritos for another 500,000 hours...

At least there's the blissfull aroma of roasting root vegetables permeating my apartment.

The video: 6 easy lessons for the 6 forms Tai Chi Chuan was written by Dr. Paul Lam, gold medal winner of the international competition in China and chief instructor of better health Tai Chi Chuan.

"Tai Chi Chuan orginates from acient China and is commonly known as Tai Chi, it is nowadays know as the ultimate form of exercise for the improvement and maintenance of health."

From the scant research  I've done (the full extent of which was me copying and pasting "Dr. Paul Lam" into a search engine) it appears that Dr. Lam developed a program of Tai Chi movements to alleviate pain associated with arthritis.

Are you there Dad? It's me Amy.

In 1993, at the third international Tai Chi competition in Beijing China, Dr. Paul Lam won one gold and two silver medals. He composed the 6 forms of Tai Chi Chuan based on the popular 24 forms. So if what we learned last weekend is the short form, this must be the micro form. It's the Twitter of Tai Chi! Someone please rescue this keyboard from my hands.

I made it to form two before my back was to the computer screen and I couldn't see what do do next. I'm finding that I'm extremely impatient with learning this stuff--maybe more the reason to continue on? I just want to know the "moves" and practice Tai Chi at sunrise in the park like all the cool people do. But I guess learning something new takes dedication and commitment. Crikey.

Needless to say I paused the video to write this little puppy, because Tom, a friend of mine from Master Gardener class, was totally unimpressed with my level of activity on the blog. If you knew Tom you'd want to impress him with your blog because he is possibly one of the coolest cats I know. So, Tom this update's for you.

More later...
Amy