“Our deep history was spent, at different times, in ancient oceans, small streams and savannahs, not office buildings, ski slopes and tennis courts. We were not designed to live past the age of eighty, sit on our kleisters for … Read More »
Author Archives: Jan Golden
Jan Golden
Spokes
My colonizer tongue speaks for me now. The emeritus beauty of Old Irish is now retired to texts and those faded few who can speak it still. Modern Irish has suffered a butchering from the grimly shrill goons in … Read More »
Janus
“We see, at least consciously, only what we are attending to in a focused way ( with the conscious left hemisphere). Since what we select to attend to is guided by our expectations of what it is we are going … Read More »
Adagio
We slow. Athwart the room, a hive mind in synchrony. Slow. Tai chi is famous for it. It is the mark of it. A ward of coronary infarctions tell me they first saw it in Hong Kong or Shanghai in … Read More »
Silver Silk Screen
It has become a tiresome cliché to see tai chi used in films, appearing for a few seconds in a movie to convey the sudden attainment of “inner peace” or equilibrium with one’s ambience for the protagonist.
The problem … Read More »
Élève Professeur
No matter how exalted, how proud, how sure one is on the lofty peak of perfection, the greatest teacher needs a student. Even Zarathustra had to descend the mountain to seek them.
My students have made me. It is a … Read More »
Tanzen
“ We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once”
“ I would only believe in a god that knows how to dance”
Nietzsche
“How can we tell the dancer from the … Read More »
Airport Carousel
HH the Dalai Lama once said that you should never get married until you had “gotten over” your parents. What did he mean by “ gotten over”? He meant that you cannot claim to be free of the continual rain … Read More »
Gyroscope
Dynamic Stability is an essential tool for the serious tai chi student.
“Precession can be demonstrated by placing a spinning gyroscope with its axis horizontal and supported loosely (frictionless toward precession) at one end. Instead of falling, as might be … Read More »
Intention and Meditation
Part of the training involved in Xing Yi ( one of the three Internal Martial Arts along with Tai Chi and Ba Gua) is a standing practice known as “San Ti” where you stand still and imagine your opponents as … Read More »
