Attention

The reason the poems I post are short is because, being a Tai Chi teacher, I am acutely aware that the average attention span is even shorter. My teacher once told a class that in his experience the average attention span is less than 20 seconds. After the class he confided in me that it was in fact less than 1 second but that he didn't want to depress the students. What he meant by attention span isn't the length of time a person can concentrate on one activity for, but the length of time a person has the power to remain open enough for real energetic communication to take place. And it is a matter of power. This is why the intensity of the teachers presence, which lends power to the student, can force that attention span to stretch, and why the student feels so exhausted or out of sorts if not immediately after then certainly once they have ridden that power as far as it can go. The job of the teacher is to affect change. He will use all at his disposal to make it happen.