1st Tai Chi class

I've always been fascinated by Tai Chi starting back when I used to do Sunday morning runs with the Running Room, my locations is right next to Chinatown and you'd see a group of people in the park doing Tai Chi.

In the spring and summer I pass a house on my way to weigh in were a little old lady will be doing Tai Chi on her balcony.

I had researched classes before but none really worked for my crazy fly in fly out schedule but low and behold my gym was going to offer a class so I signed up.

It started today and I was happy to see the instructor was Chinese, though people all over the world practice  Tai Chi it just would have felt funny if she was a  bouncy blond with blue eyes. It turns out Yen learned Tai Chi from her Grandfather and then studied extensively in China.

She spoke very broken English but I got the jist of what she was saying and it was kind of profound. We all have Chi (Qi) described as our life force but we live in a hectic world and on auto pilot so we forget our Chi and don't foster it.

I once had a Chinese massage which is supposed to work on your Chi and when I got off the table I was wicked woosy so I think there's something to this. Multiple cultures have a word for ones life force that gives more emphasis then the English language does.

We worked on the first 2 moves and there are 24 in all and this was the first of 6 classes.  I'm going to need to practice a little before the next class. At one point we were doing a standing meditation where you focus on your head, eyes, mouth, chest and so on. You have your eyes closed but at one point I heard someone take 2 very quick steps then wham they just crumpled to the floor. She looked young and was fine just a little shaken. We were standing for awhile and that can do wonky things to you.

It was a small class maybe 12 people but I think that's a good thing as it's easier to see her and for her to correct your movements. After the class we asked her to run through the whole sequence so we could see it, it was beautiful and I hope I can get this down to keep getting better.

Before the class I did 4 miles on the treadmill as that was my long run for this week. The treadmills at the gym shake so at one point I just walked it out at a quick pace and incline.

I will focus on keeping my long runs on Friday or Saturday.

Tomorrow it's up at 3:30 am and I pre made a breakfast sandwich again. Last week I couldn't finish it but I think that was because the bagel thin was a little soggy and dense after being microwaved as a complete sandwich. This week I'll use an English muffin and kept the egg and Canadian bacon wrapped separately so I'll toast the muffin and nuke the egg/bacon.

It's going to be an incredibly long day tomorrow as I have meetings until 7 pm. I'm planning my day out to include snacks to keep me going.

I fly home on Tuesday as I'm going to the Eric Church concert on Wednesday.

Well I hope you all had a great Sunday.

Hugs!!!