Mellow

Relaxed enough for things to settle into their component parts. The thing itself is then the dynamic interaction of those parts rather than their physical agglomeration. Things begin to lose their thingness and instead become energetic processes, constantly ready and willing to combine and transform, if only for a moment. This is what the Tai Chi student struggles to become. Each of the main centres of the physical structure - belly, heart and head - has multiple aspects (my teacher calls them dimensions) as well as two halves, and opening these centres involves re-establishing and developing this multiplicity. The waist is always ready to turn both ways, as well as sink or rise, and never locks in stillness or in one direction. The heart is always giving, receiving, embracing, gathering, often all at once. The head (brain) is always ready to see all sides and never locks into an established train of thought: thinking should be gently and tentatively picking a path through undergrowth rather than pacing a well-worn path or a tarmaced road. If you can learn to admit all aspects then you will become the energy bouncing between. This is the healthy way to become an energetic being. It is the key to softness. It has nothing to do with yin and yang. Yin and yang, and the associated symbol, are an intellectual construct, and if you decide to think of the world in their terms then you are overlaying an unnatural structure, and the world will shrink from you. If you learn to naturally vibrate with energy rather than force it then you will become so seductive the world wont be able to resist - it will swallow you up as and into its natural processes.