Rest

Body builders know for a fact than when they train (lift their excessive and awesome weights) they are destroying or breaking down muscle, and it is during their extensive rest periods between training sessions that the muscle is built up larger and stronger than it was before. This is probably a good model of what happens during any work regime. Working you expend energy, resting you gather it. This rhythm is the heart beat of the work. It never stops. Hit the right rhythm and your labours will be worthwhile. Work too hard or too much and you’ll become blinkered and exhausted and eventually burn out, rest too much and you’ll become sluggish and depressed. The important point here though is that the quality of your rest is as important as the quality of your work, especially with something like Tai Chi for which relaxation should be such a vital necessity. Students who don’t rest properly tend either to be incapable of relaxing, or their relaxation is just sleepy and lifeless: no real energy. Getting through your day with tension rather than energy is very dangerous. The tension will draw on reserves of vitality that should really be saved for much later and you’ll age more quickly and live a shorter effective life than you should. What proportion of the population start the day with coffee and end it with alcohol? This habit may get you through the day, but it’s unlikely that any of the activities of the day will help in developing and refining the soft abiding between-energy that should consume and envelop everything the good student does. Tension, by definition, tightens, constricts and separates. Heart opens, expands and joins. The two cannot live together.