Well, would you look at this mess? It's only a week and a half into my life as a blogger and I'm already falling behind on my (let's be honest - extremely light) self assigned schedule for blog entries. Well, fuck it, then. On Monday I said I'd continue discussing my paintings with some photographs to show some examples of what I'm drivelling on about. On Wednesday I explained my digicam was acting up and so there had been a delay but I'd be posting tomorrow. Yesterday (the alleged tomorrow in question) I posting nothing. Today, I actually got the digicam to do some work, but now I only have an hour until I need to be at Tai Chi People for my weekly (at best) arse-whoopin' lesson. So, instead of fucking around with the Olympus and the Adobe and the Blogger uploading thingumajigger some more and wasting what little time I have, I'm putting it off until tomorrow and writing about something else instead. And since I'm on my way to Tai Chi People, why not make it about Tai Chi Chuan? Or if you prefer, Taijiquan. Or T'ai chi chu'an. Anyway, the "grand ultimate martial art."
So, I began doing taijiquan (my favorite spelling) shortly before my 31st birthday. I am now about 6 months past my 34th birthday, so I ought to have about 3.5 years experience at it, and getting on towards being kind of formidable. The fact is, though, I only attended classes regularly - almost every day, in fact, for the first year or so of my practice. Since then, I have been compelled by unhelpful class and work schedules (to say nothing of unhelpful financial situations and just plain sloth) to do considerably less than that. At first, I was still doing my daolu (forms) work every day, and conditioning myself to be stronger and more flexible with the qigong I learned in class, but slowly it got shuffled to the side in favor of - well, in favor of nothing very good or helpful. I spent a lot more time asleep, or surfing the web, or drinking and smoking pot, or just fucking off. So, when I decided a few weeks ago that I would return to regular class attendance, albeit on a scaled down schedule, I had gained a lot of weight and lost a lot of flexibility and muscle memory of how to do this stuff right. And sure enough, I find myself making mistakes in tui shou (pushing hands, a form of light sparring concentrating on developing your own stationary stability and forcing your opponent to move when he doesn't wish to) I never would have made before. Sort of the same way that I wouldn't have used so many comma splices and parenthetical expressions before I stopped writing with any frequency.
So, from a certain perspective, this blog, my return to college and my return to Tai Chi People are all parts of the same early-onset midlife crisis. I want to get my health back, my artistic chops back, my writing chops back, and well, basically I want to get to a point where I'm disciplined and reliable and actually genuinely good at something. I've coasted a long time in this life on the fortunate circumstances of my birth, but it's made me so lazy and dependent that I basically have no confidence in myself as is. I'm a poster boy for wasted potential, and it's time to change that.
Work out.
Paint.
Draw.
Write.
Make some money.
Get a girl.
Do all that, Austin, and you'll start to actually be worth your own high opinion of your potential. Because potential without actual ain't shit. And you ain't got much in the way of actual right now.
So, I began doing taijiquan (my favorite spelling) shortly before my 31st birthday. I am now about 6 months past my 34th birthday, so I ought to have about 3.5 years experience at it, and getting on towards being kind of formidable. The fact is, though, I only attended classes regularly - almost every day, in fact, for the first year or so of my practice. Since then, I have been compelled by unhelpful class and work schedules (to say nothing of unhelpful financial situations and just plain sloth) to do considerably less than that. At first, I was still doing my daolu (forms) work every day, and conditioning myself to be stronger and more flexible with the qigong I learned in class, but slowly it got shuffled to the side in favor of - well, in favor of nothing very good or helpful. I spent a lot more time asleep, or surfing the web, or drinking and smoking pot, or just fucking off. So, when I decided a few weeks ago that I would return to regular class attendance, albeit on a scaled down schedule, I had gained a lot of weight and lost a lot of flexibility and muscle memory of how to do this stuff right. And sure enough, I find myself making mistakes in tui shou (pushing hands, a form of light sparring concentrating on developing your own stationary stability and forcing your opponent to move when he doesn't wish to) I never would have made before. Sort of the same way that I wouldn't have used so many comma splices and parenthetical expressions before I stopped writing with any frequency.
So, from a certain perspective, this blog, my return to college and my return to Tai Chi People are all parts of the same early-onset midlife crisis. I want to get my health back, my artistic chops back, my writing chops back, and well, basically I want to get to a point where I'm disciplined and reliable and actually genuinely good at something. I've coasted a long time in this life on the fortunate circumstances of my birth, but it's made me so lazy and dependent that I basically have no confidence in myself as is. I'm a poster boy for wasted potential, and it's time to change that.
Work out.
Paint.
Draw.
Write.
Make some money.
Get a girl.
Do all that, Austin, and you'll start to actually be worth your own high opinion of your potential. Because potential without actual ain't shit. And you ain't got much in the way of actual right now.
posted by Austin at 2:49 PM
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