In taiji we work hard to develop a root – a strong and stable connexion with the ground – not in order to be formidable or indomitable, but in order to have the simple confidence to admit the destabilizing and eroding presence of the void, the unknowable, the unconscious – of death – into our being. And these are our two concerns in taiji: Earth and Spirit, or Gravity and Grace, the only things we all, unquestionably, have in common. The work is to strip myself bare of anything uncommon so that everything I/we have is shared.