Lightness

Dr Chi always maintained the most important principle of TaiChi to be Light & nimble, like a monkey. That, combined with a yielding surface, gives us nimble centre, elastic circumference: the surface should be soft enough to give way instantly to pressure, yet elastic enough to stick to that pressure if released. If the pressure continues the yielding surface turns outside in, rather like an amoeba swallowing food: limbs of protoplasmic energy surround the oncoming energy as it is yielded to - an embrace.

Lightness implies something is constantly active, some part of you never slumbers and is never still, which brings to mind Jakobson's Static perception is a fiction, to which we propose an alternative: Motile perception is a friction. The constant movement is two figures of eight twining around each other, rubbing and smouldering, ready to burst alight. I am alive as long as there is fire in my head. Because of the way we're structured (facing outward) we move forward, magnetized by onrush, drawing the world into our chests as we go. The feeling is of not holding on or back, allowing things to flow through, not grasping onto landmarks: Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me! Lightness is also an energy and a blessing that you cast on the world, like a delicate shower of angeldust, each mote a pinprick of spirit. It enlivens and it enjoys; it is contagious and transformative: The action of the universe is metamorphosis - it's articulation, metaphor.

we are labyrinths
open spirals or cones
governed by
precision & touch

Painting by Assi Ben Porat a beloved student of John Kells, living & teaching TaiChi in Israel.