The figure of eight as a path to freedom

The figure of eight, which we describe with various parts of our body - hands, fingers, feet, shoulders, hips, sacrum, head, eyes, tongue, etc. - is, in fact, a three dimensional object - an hour-glass shape - an 8 revolved about its vertical axis of symmetry. If when practising the simple figure 8 exercise (alternate vertical 8's with the two hands) you allow a light mischieveous activity to come into play (what my teacher calls delight) then you may feel that both the top and the bottom of the eight have a double aspect to their roundness. Rather like a backside which looks like a simple round protruberance from a distance only to reveal itself as two buttocks on closer inspection. The figure of eight is buttocked, very gently so, so that both the top and the bottom of the 8 look rather like the popular image of the heart. Whichever part of the body is being used to trace the figure of eight, that part is rooted in another part of the body. So the hand is rooted in the shoulder, and if that root is allowed to get involved in the figure of eighting as well then two figures of eight are described, one by the hand and the other by the shoulder, the shoulder lagging the hand, giving two slightly out of phase 8's, hence the double 'buttocked' feel. The hand can equally be thought to be rooted in the wrist, which is rooted in the elbow, which is rooted in the shoulder, which is rooted in the heart. With work it is possible to get all five parts figure of eighting together, producing five figures of eight all out of phase, wobbling and interacting in a complex of energy and movement. Bring in the five fingers and their joints and you have a consuming madness impossible to analyse but, if you get into it, impossible to resist. So, the lightness we try to cultivate in Tai Chi can be thought of as finding the unmoving root of our movements and getting that involved in the activity as well, rather like dragging grandpa onto the dance floor at the xmas party. In Tai Chi the root is in the feet and lightness is distinguished by a fleetness of foot. However, the root is also in the ground, can you be so active and light that that moves with you as well? Of course, anything is possible energetically. Where is the heart rooted, can that be released? Lightness comes from being brave enough not to cling onto anything for support. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.