Through-line

“The moving finger of time writes, and having writ, moves on”

— Omar Khayyám

One of my favorite things to enjoy this time of the year are all the lights! On cue our early dusk reveals neighborhoods glowing red, green, blue and white. It instantly lifts my mood and makes me crave a fire and hot chocolate. I’m an early riser so I always turn ours on, inside and out, while my tea is brewing. I start my day with a mug of hot earl grey, sipping and staring out the window at the tiny white lights dancing through the fallow garden.

One of my least favorite things this time of year is all the haste.  This should be a “yin” time for us in the Northern Hemisphere. It would be better to be gathering by the fire and drinking that hot chocolate, sleeping in, reading, and knitting. Instead, we barely have time to enjoy the beauty that is around us. It’s hard to counter habits that are embedded in our generational and cultural nervous system, but over the years I have found ways to ease personal and social expectations and slow down a bit. I feel many of my friends are also leaning into the ways of “not doing.”

I’m also not a fan of “year in review.”  Sure, it’s fun to dig in the memory garden and smell the roses and we must weed out mistakes. But generally, I’m the type of person who prefers to mulch and move on. This year especially is not something I wish to spend my time looking back on. I know what happened. For my family it has been one long stream of serious health issues, life threatening and life altering. It’s been a constant fight with the medical system. It’s been exhausting and we are working hard to reshape our lives and move forward. All this has happened against the backdrop of the deeply disturbing times in our global family. I wrote on one holiday card to a longtime friend in a similar situation with her life, “Here’s to the year we didn’t see coming.”

You who know me probably know what’s coming next: My declaration that my practices, both personal and professional, unquestionably keep me stable through it all. Practice is my eye of the storm.

I shared last week in a class about a time early in my practice life I intentionally quit. It had been ten years, I had a black belt, goal achieved, it was time to look around for life outside the dojo. I travelled, I studied overseas, I moved to a completely different state. I kept looking for something new and “more interesting.” During all this I also became untethered and after about a year and a half, deeply depressed. At that very low point, I visited my mom. We made a pro-con list of ideas I might try next. After days of this it was her, the itinerate non-believer in what I had been doing with my life who said, “why don’t you go back to your dojos, you were happy there.”  I did. I was. I never left practice again.

Thirty six years after quitting and restarting, practice has been my life’s fundamental through- line. I have long since stopped questioning its value. My health, my friendships, the people I meet, my teachers, the life I have the privilege to experience, it all has come from this that I do. There is no separation anymore, no wedge to create a space that says, this now and something else later. It truly is just this now.

One of the views that students who are beginning might have of a person with a life practice is that they are special. That there is something unique in the DNA, a practice gene! Oh could it be so! But no, people who live a life with the tether of intentional breathing in and out, deliberate stepping left and raising and lowering their arms are just normal people.  We are people who have, as everyone else on the planet has, seen life and death, experienced health, and disease, enjoyed bliss and endured frustration. There is nothing unique, nothing special. And yet is it also true that which sets a life-long practioner apart from one who is not is the decision to stay “on the floor”  despite all the chaos and unpredictability that normal life throws our way. One who finds and nurtures the quiet center.

After sharing the story of my quitting I received a heartfelt email from a student. She herself has been studying for quite some time - since the pandemic with me and many years before in a different state. She said she appreciated knowing my story, that due to her life and its overwhelming circumstances right now she was considering quitting. Instead, she chose to keep going and re-registered with renewed appreciation for her own practice. I don’t know her well, but I do know it is true her life is overwhelming right now. I offered, “quitting is a perfectly logical thought to have. Find something else to quit.”

I’m always a bit worried when I tell my stories – I’m worried my message may be perceived not as inspirational but as shaming for having to make certain culling decisions due to life circumstances. That is not it at all. I truly respect people’s need to find their own way through this life. We all must. What is true however, is because of my own personal experience, I am a fierce advocate for finding and sticking with a throughline no matter what is happening. One that keeps us pliant, flexible, adaptable. One that keeps us as physically, mentally, and spiritually healthy as possible.  One that allows us joy in dark times. And especially one that keep us buoyantly tethered through whatever storms – be they personal or collective - we encounter. And encounter them we will.

In the upcoming year I am intentionally cultivating a stronger practice for myself and those who practice with us at the school. It is stormy weather now and will be even more this next year. If you don’t practice with us, find another that suits you and dig in. I am confident we will need it. Let’s do it for ourselves, let’s do it because staying tethered to our heart, soul and body is going to mean everything when next year about now we string the lights and reflect back.

I wish you all a smooth glide into the new year, with a nice fire and some hot chocolate. May we all keep our through-lines nurtured and buoyant this next year.

Respect,

Kim

“Gotta tend the earth if you want a rose.”

— The Indigo Girls

And Now This

“Eight times down, nine times up”

— Zen saying

Everyone who knows me knows this past session has been personally harrowing! 12 weeks ago my husband was told he needed urgent spine surgery to address the loss of mobility in one of his legs.  The next couple of weeks were a blur of tests, second opinions, scheduling, re-scheduling and structuring our lives for the next 3 months of lifestyle limitations & healing. Soon he was on the operating table.  The surgery went well but shortly thereafter complications developed and the next month was spent trying to navigate debilitating nerve pain and an even greater loss of mobility.  Emergency rooms, powerful medications, pain, confusion, fear, and his true suffering marked each moment of our daily lives.

I found myself on the front lines of advocacy within the post-covid western medical system. Unable to get to the right people to give clear answers as to what was happening, my days were consumed with ongoing ferocity and frustration. The worse part was being completely inept to ease my guy’s suffering. Finally, I broke the doors of the system down and it was determined he needed a second surgery. Thankfully, that surgery mitigated the pain, but unfortunately it set the clock back to the beginning of the healing process, including activities to help regain mobility. The whole experience was, and remains, extremely stressful as you can imagine.

Amid Kevin’s crisis, I had my own unexpected health shock. On a routine DEXA scan, it was found I had very low bone density. I was really thrown for a loop on that one. How could a person such as myself, with my lifestyle and decades long level of fitness, have osteoporosis? My world view of myself and how I knew my body was shaken to its core. On top of it all, the school had its biggest enrollment since the before times and I was hosting a large workshop with teachers from England with many local and out of town students.  I barely had time to digest anything that was happening.

I’ve long since known one of my superpowers is navigating balls in the air with equanimity. I take pride in applying my discipline of practice to my daily life. I’m organized, I have a plan, I figure things out, I am calm, present, and focused. Almost all the time, either by my training or by my will I can make things happen and they work out. This was not how it was going. My mental health was completely frayed.

I called my therapist, a long-standing Zen Roshi here in Seattle. I’ve known Genjo for many years and consider myself fortunate to be able to consult with him on such matters as these. Sitting on his couch I queried, “what do you Zen people do with this amount of overwhelm?” He laughed and said, “we say, ‘and now this.’”   And now this. Admittedly it took me a few minutes to reconcile my, “I can DO this” with “and now this,” but doing so allowed me the breathing room I needed.

Having a practice of teaching during this time has been hard. I worried about the lousy job I was doing of setting an example of equanimity. There were more times than I’d like to admit I was nowhere near my body. I questioned revealing so much of my personal life to my students. After all, it is not a student’s job to process their teacher’s life. I was definitely not at the top of my professional game, and because I pride myself at being so, I questioned the long investment I had made in my practice. Shouldn’t I be better able to navigate my life right now? In a moment of shared despair about how failed I felt, student Micha (also a therapist) reminded me that practice is not about creating a barrier to life, it is about creating the resiliency to keep showing up in the midst of the mess that life actually is.

I felt subpar, but I kept at it. For my husband, for my job, for myself, for my life. Don’t misunderstand me, it’s not that every day I wanted to participate in my life! Rather than advocate, go to the gym, water the garden, shop, step on the floor and say, “feel your feet, raise and lower arms,” I might have preferred to stay in bed scratching my cat and binge-watching Ted Lasso. I remember one of the exercises from my early days of Judo – on our bellies, fisted arms reaching forward, dragging ourselves across the mat like a snake with no swish. Most days felt like that.

As difficult as the “to-do’s” of my daily life have been, the hardest to do, next to watching my guy’s suffering, has been allowing people to help. I’m much more skilled at holding space for other’s challenges than dropping the veil of mine and allowing people behind the curtain. As I gave my friends & students a front row seat to my family’s and my struggles, many people, some of whom I knew only from our time together in class, offered to help - by words, deeds, and holding loving space. It took everything I had left inside of me to say, yes, please, thank you, that would be great. Thank you. I even got a little practiced at taking the initiative and asking for help.

Life did begin to calm down, but as if there needed to be one more test for the road, last week I ended up in the emergency room with a severe allergic reaction! I guess it was to me sticking my face in flowers or perhaps it was some spider bites, or maybe my immune system just said, “enough already!” Sitting in the ER texting my friends photos of my swollen face looking like a bee, I may have said a few other choice words than “and now this,” but knew as long as I was still breathing, I’d be ok.  

And now this became a touch stone for me over these past months as did sharing my challenges, as did asking for and receiving help.  I was able to maintain my practices, personal and professional, ragged as they may have been, while unexpected life just kept rapid firing my way. I even found my body in it all and the session ended on a high note. As I write these reflections Kevin is better, the garden thrives. My face looks like me again. I’ve made my peace with my thin bone genetics and am grateful for the intentional life that gives me strength, balance, confidence and resiliency. Perhaps most importantly I have deepened relationships and even several new friends in my life. I have learned first-hand about receiving human generosity. Thank you.

Happy summer everyone. Steady on.

The Best Beginner

“Even the greatest was once a beginner ”

— Muhammad Ali

When I began watercolor painting last year my teacher asked, “what are you looking for?” After a moment of thought I replied, “I’m looking to see differently.”  I’m not quite sure what I meant, I only knew I wanted to see the world around me and myself in it anew. Taijiquan & Qigong certainly teach me to be open to seeing, feeling and moving on multiple planes of perception, but I was looking for something different, or changed or something. I wasn’t quite sure.

Luckily, I found a fine teacher who is an expert in teaching beginners. We drilled the basics and over this past year I have learned how to mix paint, use different brushes, gradate paint, understand paper and more. He schooled me through this beginning stage with a perfect combination of encouragement, support, and challenge.  I have kept almost everything I’ve done and enjoy seeing my own growth. Some of my work I even like!  I’m mystified why at 65 I’ve had no idea of this world before. I did have a good education, but art was not part of it. What a shame, it seems like such an essential skill, right along with reading, math, and writing.

Of course, I have been frustrated along the way, but luckily through my martial arts training, also with excellent teachers, I do understand the learning process. Basics and practice - there is just no other combination for anything we learn. Unfortunately, as adults we forget, or like art education, perhaps we were never taught this simple key to learning. We somehow expect ourselves to already know something we don’t know. It’s nutty!

Like my painting teacher Jess Rice, my first martial arts teacher Ken Carson was a fantastic teacher. Not only did I learn Judo, I learned how to learn Judo. I remember many things he taught me, paramount to them, “Be the best White Belt you can be.” A White Belt is a beginner.  Whenever I tried to jump ahead of myself, he reminded me. Finally, being the best beginner became my singular goal. Each time I was promoted I took it as the next beginning level, and I went at it to be the best of that level. And by the way, I don’t mean the best relative to others, I mean the best relative to my own capabilities. And while it took many years, I finally earned my Black Belt. I knew at that time I had really earned it. To this day, my body still remembers Judo.

Being the best beginner has helped me to learn other important skills since then. As I continue to explore and gain experience with different disciplines in my chosen ways, I never forget how important the basics and practicing them are. Over the years learning complex choreographies has taken a back seat to the basics. In terms of my skill, but more importantly in terms of my mental & physical health, I think it’s paid off. In fact, I’m sure of it. And I trust that I am also passing on to my students this simple formula my teacher gave to me. After all, learning to connect our mind with our body is taught to us from an early age about as much as art is. Most of us have no idea how to do it. We have to be taught. And we have to practice.

Now, back to my goal in painting: to learn to see differently. After only a year I do not yet. I do “see” more in what others are doing. I’m beginning to understand what style I’m drawn to and what I personally want to cultivate. Yet I’m still copying, still tethered to my teacher’s brush. I attempt to break free, but when I do my work looks like a child’s work. Yet, when I think about it, this is precisely correct. I am a beginner. I need to stay right here and be the best beginner I can.  We could all do worse than staying tethered to a good teacher.

Staying a beginner is not to say we do not have glimpses into the next plateau, in fact it is what enables us to have them. When I painted some images of my recent trip to Death Valley I did reach up into a new place. In fact, for one painting, only a small sketchbook effort, my teacher said if he would not have known it was me, he would have thought it was painted by a professional. That was a big surprise to me. Even though I tried to stay a beginner, my humanity got the best of me. My next several paintings have been, well, nothing I’d post in a newsletter. When I asked teacher Jess - with a bit of frustration - what to do next, he replied, “paint circles.” I said, “I feel like I’ve been sent back to the remedial room!” He replied, “we all go back there.”

The take home message? Be the best beginner you can. Learn the basics and practice. It’s not a punishment or a failure. It doesn’t mean we are not progressing. On the contrary! Decades ago, I had the opportunity to watch Yo-Yo Ma in a workshop at the Berkshire Music Festival. Someone asked him how he practices. He replied, “I practice my scales every day.”

Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain

A few weeks ago our Sunday Tai Chi class had an extraordinary experience.  It was smaller due to the weather and for the most part it was the intermediate/advanced group (and 2 adventurous newer students). Rather than split into groups for specific levels as we usually do, we all stayed together.  I decided to make it a leap-frog flow class, my favorite way to practice - practice a few movements, start over, repeat, add a few, start over repeat, keep adding etc. By the end of the 75-minute class we made it through the whole form, having repeated sections of it many times. I spoke little more than calling out the names of the movements. The effect of the practice was meditative and deep; one could feel the change of consciousness in oneself and in the practice hall.

I posit most people who are curious about Tai Chi and Qigong are looking for this feeling. Even those who know nothing about the art sense this possibility when observing groups of people flowing together. There was a big upsurge in enrollment after the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, for example. Whether consciously or not, I believe this flow, this quiet connection to the fluid rhythms of life is something we all crave. All the teachers I have ever had have been masters at creating this experience for students. Intuitively they, without effort, slip us out of our heads and into our bodies. And in doing so also into something bigger, into a connection to all that is.

As I drove home, I reflected on what I was feeling. I recognized more than any specific form learned from my teachers this flow state is the lineage I have been given. This is what lured me into the arts in the first place and keeps me here to this day. Of course, I love the details and deeper explanations, but those are not what has kept me tethered to my practice. I remembered this is why I teach and what I love about the teaching experience: being together in this way with people and as best I can, passing on methods for achieving it.

Driving through the 99 tunnel I also realized I have been feeling a great deal of grief this past year.  I didn’t quite realize this subtle malaise that has accompanied me on my daily to and fro’s was this. I thought I was simply tired from the herculean efforts made from crawling back from the rupture covid caused. To be honest, there have been more than a few times I have missed the bonding the early days of covid engendered in us all. Of course there was so much suffering, but it also held potential and hope for deep change. We all, for a moment in time, shared something profound: the intimacy of the unknown. It was sacred. It’s different now.  It must be different. And we are all finding our way through to whatever is next. And yet for me grief has had its own gravitational pull, setting up residence in corners of my life I have forgotten to look in.

Seeing out through those opaque corners has made 2022 awkward, disparate and clumsy. I have not been sure how to simply be with friends, at the store, or even by myself. Through these years of online pandemic necessity, my work has become habituated into using so many words. I look at the screen and see people I know and love and wonder if I am excavating anything useful to explain the unexplainable. Many times of late I have wondered if I have anything left to say. Yet flowing together in relative silence that Sunday reminded me there is still plenty to say: quietness is its own conversation. Breathing in and out tells us more than any words can.

All of our classes for the remainder of this session, both in person and online, have been devoted to this quiet flow. In doing so I have been reminded that while grief has its own pull, so does life. Life beckons us up and expands us outward. Flowing in synchronized stillness, be it in a class or simply recognizing you and the person next to you in the grocery story are, in fact, breathing together, allows us to co-exist beyond the duality of everyday life. It restores us. And if we let it, it can restore our confidence for humanity and its evolution.

Wishing us all restored confidence in our place in life as we flow the unknown in 2023 together.

“With all this talking, what had been said? Take time to listen without words, worship the unnamable, embrace the unformed.”

— Lao Tzu

Time

“Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving. But how can they know it’s time for them to go? Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming. I have no thought of time. For who knows where the time goes? Who knows where the time goes?”

— Fairport Convention, Who Knows Where The Time Goes

In a couple weeks I turn 65. If you’ve been around me lately, you know I’m a bit obsessed about it. I love birthdays; I think they should be national holidays. I love notes and calls and social media posts. I am not shy about stating when mine is nor how old I’ll be.  I’m finally at the point in my life where I think aging is fun, a bit like a race I can still compete in! Sure, it’s a race to death, but it is so interesting! I’m lucky though, I have good health and valuable work, good friends, a comfortable life. So, when I wake up every day and hear “runners to your mark, GO!” I head off along the track curious about what the day will bring. I recognize the privilege. 

65 feels like a goal met. I’m not exactly sure when I set that goal, I don’t remember setting it, perhaps it was set for me by Medicare. As woman who has run my own business for most of my life, I’ve been responsible for all aspects of the show, including taxes and paying for my own health insurance. People may not think about a Tai Chi teacher running a business, but for over 30 years that is exactly what I have done, along with the rest of what is needed to provide this specific service.  So, starting now paying $250 instead of $1250 a month for my health care most certainly feels like crossing a finish line: hands up waving, sweat pouring down, big smile beaming, “I made it!”

My birth month also marks my annual anniversary of starting the martial arts: 45 years now. What nice hard numbers! 65/45. Unlike feeling that I met some goal however, 45 years in my practices feels nothing like that. It’s weird, it doesn’t really feel like anything. It’s just what I do, like brushing my teeth. It must fit into another category for me, not one of dashing to death or even one with a finish line.  I suppose, unlike regular life, I don’t look at these practices as having a beginning or end, just as one big continuum I stepped into 45 years ago, one that will keep going long after I’m gone.

I never really thought about it before, but it is comforting to have such a huge part of my experience in this life be one where there is no race, no goal, no beginning, no end. To be living a life whose practice it is to always be looking up out of the small me slogging through the day in and day out to something vaster and more timeless. For me, these practices have never been about achieving. Sure, I have black belts and awards and certifications I worked hard for, but to be honest - and I think any practitioner will also tell you, once one gets those things, they fade so quickly into the past they become for all intents and purposes, meaningless.

I don’t feel life lived is like that though, realized and then meaningless. I remember at the beginning of the pandemic I very intentionally set a goal, “I want however long this lasts to mean something. I want to know I did not waste my time.” I know for sure I met that goal. And I think perhaps I also set a similar goal for my life when I was young. I doubt I looked at it so cogently, I certainly didn’t realize then that my practices would be that which would give my life so much value, but I must have truly wanted the long stretch ahead of me to mean something. Now at 65/45, I think it has.  Or does, or something like that.

This is a hard calculus to make, isn’t it? When our life finish line comes did our time here mean anything? With the end of each day’s race, how’d we fare? More essentially, have we mindfully woven the meaningful and the meaningless, the goals and the no goals, time and timelessness into the fabric of our lives? Are we even supposed to know that answer? Who affirms or denies these questions anyway?

Well, the muse is fun, but thinking I’ll find those answers is probably just a waste of my valuable practice time. After all, as Lao Tzu says, “If you wish to embody the Tao, stop chattering and start practicing!”

Happy Birthday! To me, to you, to us all. Here’s to one more day along the Flow.

“We were just wasting time
Let the hours roll by
Doing nothing for the fun
A little taste of the good life
Whether right or wrong
Makes us want to stay, stay, stay, stay, stay for a while.”

— Dave Mathews, Stay

Roses

“Nature follows the Way of the Tao”

— Ancient Saying

I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels the stuffing has gotten knocked out of them over these past months. Pick any of the current events and it’s enough, but combined in rapid succession, still under the shadow of this pandemic, it’s become too much to feel, even for the most resilient among us. Many I know continue to spout optimistic euphemisms. Others I know express their outrage through ugly memes spewed all over their social media. I find myself in neither of those camps, instead choosing to withdraw from social media, the news and spend more time in my garden.  

I’m turning 65 this September, which also marks my 45th year anniversary in the martial/internal arts. I remember when I walked into my first dojo and saw Sensei Carson, who would become my teacher. He was sitting at his desk in the back of the school. He told me to remove my shoes and walk across the mat. He stood up and shook my hand and asked me to sit down. He simply said, “Why do you want to study Judo?” I had no idea, really; I answered, “I don’t know. It’s always something I’ve wanted to do.” We discussed logistics and made plans for me to start class the following Tuesday. I walked back across the mat toward the lobby; I knew everything in my life just changed. I put my shoes back on and left through the large solid metal core door. Though I didn’t know how my experience would unfold, I knew it would take courage to live it.

It was a different life before I stepped on the mat that first time.  A lost life, an unbalanced life. A life of wandering through a thorny thicket of external circumstances looking for the roses. I followed some faint scent but could never quite find what I intuited was there. I bled a lot from those myriad thorn pricks, but I just kept looking for the beauty I hoped might be there. I remember saying to myself over and over, “if I can just get through this, I’ll teach others how to, too.” I had no idea what that internal voice meant, but it kept me going.

It never occurred to me this path would be the path to finding the roses and sharing them with others. In fact, much of my early experience was a hard prune. But gradually new growth happened, and it was not until many years later I realized how much nurturing my first teacher gave me to get new tender sprouts to push out of that wood. I don’t even think roses happened during those first years, but unbeknownst to me, the buds were there.

Amidst thinking about the world as it currently is, I’m also reflecting a lot about my personal life. I have been so deeply shaped by my practices and all that I have encountered under their guidance that I no longer can separate any of it. The arts I’ve studied, the places I’ve travelled to study them, the people with whom I’ve travelled & practiced, those who have mentored me and those whom I have mentored are woven deep into the fabric of me. It’s been a joyful, fun, grueling, beautiful, surprising, and yes courageous path. Now that 65 looms into view people ask if I will retire. Retire from what? This is my life.

I also reflect I did get through those dark times; I do show others possible ways they might too. I do not see that stopping though admittedly at “retirement age” I thought I’d be doing what I do while simultaneously hypnotized by the scent of myriad roses from a beautiful garden. Unexpectedly I find myself catapulted back into a thorny thicket. This time it’s not the garden of my personal life, but that of our world. What a bleeding fungal mess it all is.  

For someone who is comfortable with her voice, lately I find myself gobsmacked into an oddly quiet place. One where I wonder if I have anything to say. I think, not much. But I do have one thing to teach. Will it get us through? I have no idea, yet here it is:

Never miss practice.

Keep breathing. Keep moving. Cultivate your center. Stay grounded. Do these things on purpose. Protest the terrifying tilt our world is in by keeping, nurturing, and returning to your own center. Wake up every day and be intentional about your practices, whether you want to or not. Do not let external circumstances steal your center. When we feel everything slipping out from under us, our practice balances our life and that is important. Why? Because The Sages, the Garden, everything around us reminds us of the one truth: everything changes. We may or may not see the changes in our lifetime, but as my teacher did with me, we can nurture this possibility. And we can only do that if we stay centered, whether there are roses to smell or just the compost they grow out of.

(Rosa Sheila’s Perfume, Hybrid Tea)

This is our experience

“And I scream from the top of my lungs, What's going on?"
-4 Non-Blondes

A couple of weeks ago I went into the dentist expecting to be fitted with a crown for my implant. It had been just shy of a year’s process that was fraught with too much of the unexpected. A cracked root, a big infection, less than desirable patient care from each dentist I saw, much advocating for myself in a field I knew nothing about. And of course, a lot of discomfort, time and a lot of money. Finally, the extraction, graft & implant were finished last October. All I had to do was wait for the bone to grab the titanium and I could get my new tooth. All was well until two weeks ago when my dentist gave me the bad news: “your implant failed.” 

I went home confused and I think a bit in shock. I’m blessed with generally good health, and I had never before encountered such a weird process for such an unsuccessful outcome. Because of how unpleasant the process had been, because there seemed to be no good reason for the failure, “you were unlucky,” a cascade of worry flooded over me. Bone loss, try again, get a bridge, I just didn’t really know how to process it.  I didn’t know who or what to trust. I arrived home and logged on to my painting class. 

Over the next three hours I focused on painting loose florals. I lost myself in Sunflowers of Aureolin Yellow and Ceruelan Blue. I thought about Ukraine as I laid my wet brush down on Arches Cold Press paper. Teacher Jess coached me to keep breathing. Sunflowers miraculously emerged. I stayed focused, but I also thought about my tooth and my distress. I also thought how fortunate I was to not be huddled in a subway having to worry about any of this while bombs were going off over my head.

We do that don’t we? In times of our own minor suffering, we compare ourselves and our circumstances to others in much more dire circumstances.  I’m sure I’m not the only one who grew up with the mantra, “Finish your meal, there are starving children in Africa.” It’s a bit selfish, really, to evoke other’s suffering to ease our own, but perhaps we should work harder to see ourselves relative to others with whom we share this planet. It’s not a bad thing to recognize our own privilege.

Even with sunflowers, even with several dental options available to me, as the week went on, I became aware of a growing malaise. I tried to name it: Pandemic Fatigue, Inhumane War, My Tooth, but nothing really defined the emerging sinkhole in my spirit. I felt a bit selfish in my brooding, given the bigger picture. But then in a meditation I realized what it was: I was losing hope. This was a shock to me, like my failed tooth. In the 65 years of my own life, filled with its own privilege and suffering, with its own struggle to see my place with others, I had never lost hope. 

I sat down to my painting table and wet my brush. I wondered what to do next. I thought, “my whole life has been devoted to hope, to optimism, even in the darkest times.” I realized at that moment I wasn’t simply a Tai Chi/Qigong teacher, I was a person who always had hope. I was a person who thrived on being with other hopeful people. As I painted more sunflowers I sifted through my immense grief and disappointment. Here we are, in such a failed place as humans. How unexpected. 

I sat with this feeling for a few days, not trying to talk myself out of it. I just wanted to let it be. Even though I couldn’t quite feel my way out of it, I did know in my bones I believed in something bigger than this hopelessness, this disappointment. LaoTzu, Buddha, Jesus, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, they’ve all seen a lot more than I have and somehow if they believed that light can come from darkness, I’d find my way back too.

In the weeks since my dental news the brutality of this war continues. Here, on this side of the privileged world, I have a new plan for my tooth. I continue to paint sunflowers and I donate to Ukraine.  I grieve the inhumanity we do to each other, but I also celebrate my friends victories over cancer. Every day goes on, hopeful and less than hopeful, joyful and disappointing. And now Spring is here. I plant seeds and look for light.

As I continue to reflect, I have come to but one conclusion: quite simply, right now, this is our experience. We cannot talk or evoke or rationalize our way out of it. For each of us, whatever it is, this is what we are experiencing. And no matter what this experience is, no matter what this now is for each of us, we just do not know what the future will unfold. Where then to find hope in such dark, dark times? It’s hard. Where I look is to those who have seen more than me and what sustains them - belief in the one law that is always true: everything changes.  Everything changes. Somewhere in that knowing, for me anyway, hope lives.

“Stay with me, Let's just breathe.” 
-Pearl Jam

What the water gives

“May we live in interesting times.” - Chinese Proverb

All the Moon students know I dove brush first into watercolor a couple of months ago. They give me wide latitude when at the beginning of most classes I tell tales of clumsily marking my way through this most mysterious of endeavors. I know we all strive for beginner’s mind at every moment, but let’s face it, when you have been doing something for 44 years, as I have in the martial arts, no matter how hard you try, you are not a beginner. But with painting I most definitely am. 

Honestly, I have no idea what got into me. I never had any art classes in school, even as a kid. I have zero memory of ever doing anything crafty except knitting. I never had the urge to paint. So I cannot tell you why I even glimpsed the iconic Daniel Smith flagship store as I ran errands in Sodo, but when I did it was as if some weird magnetic force turned my car around. I parked and walked through their doors. Unbeknownst to me they were closing this last retail shop in about a month. 

I bought some paper for some cards I had started to make out of pressed garden flowers and went home. For the next 2 weeks an irrational urgency took over. It wasn’t the 20%-30% off that drove me to return 3 more times. It was something more primal. Each time I simply asked the art Mavens there to “just tell me what to buy.” Before I knew it, I had a small studio’s worth of top-notch supplies. The folks there got a kick out of me likening buying this level of art supplies to telling any beginner to a weapons form to forgo the cheap crap and buy the best you can afford. “You won’t regret it.” Janice, who was helping me, listened to my story and said, “do you want to see our swords?” I left that day with a DaVinci sable hair brush, one of the best brushes in the world. 

This experience is as uncanny an experience as I have had since first beginning the martial arts. Now, as it was then, it is as a switch flipped in me. My office has transformed into a small art space, and I am diving into something I have no idea about. Thankfully my friend and fellow martial artist, Jan, took pity on me after seeing my social media posts and told me of her teacher. Jan, like me, like all of us, knows how important the right teacher is especially in the beginning. She also knows me and knew I would just keep looking until I found this person. Luckily, she knew exactly who this was. I began studying with her teacher, Jess, about a month ago.  

“Go with what the water gives you” is one of the primary instructions I hear Jess say. (That and, ironically, breathe!) The metaphor to Tai Chi & Qigong training is not lost on me, but still, I find my urge to make everything perfect is the muddiest color in my palette. It seems that it would be obvious given my primary endeavor in this life, to understand that like water itself, Watercolor’s nature is not to be controlled or be made perfect.  One would think I would be able to grasp that. But look at any of these early attempts and it is easy to see here I am, at the beginning of that lesson, again.

All the Moon students also know in addition to embarking on the Watercolor Way this is the session I hit a few lows. More than once, I allowed my wobbly emotions to escape the mask. Like is seen in my initial watercolor explorations I know I have a darn good “keep it controlled” strategy within me. Sure, I have become skilled in fluid movement, but also underneath lives a strong resistance to the unknown.  

The unrelenting unknowns of the time we are in along with the rainy fall we passed through wore me down. There were days when getting up and out to show up on the floor was truly difficult. I think if not for my training, if not for creating myself as the person who does show up no matter the circumstances, I may not have. And I know I’m not the only one who has or is experiencing this. When I started talking about it so did the Moon students. None of us have any idea how those with no practice anchor (of any type) can get out of bed these days.

A couple of weeks ago I looked out the window of my office turned art studio. The Pacific Northwest late fall sky was flat grey. One of those “I’m not sure I can do this day” thoughts showed up. Then I looked down at the white cold-press 140 lb paper and over at my palette full of gorgeous colors. I can’t say a switch flipped, but I did remember the basic instruction, “go with what the water gives you.” Those words were enough to compel me on. I started painting my beginner’s painting, looking for the possibility of flow. I can’t say I found it but something did change. And sitting there with my sword brush in hand, something also changed inside myself. “Go with what this time is giving you,” I mused.

 What is this time giving us? Chaos, the unknown, volatility for starters. Hard to control that no matter how many boosters we get! And it’s becoming increasingly difficult for any of us to mask our grief and rage and despair. However there is one thing this year on the practice floor showed me, again. The only control we have to whatever circumstance we find ourselves in is to keep showing up. And wow, have we continued to show up. Once again, I find myself at the end of this school year knowing I couldn’t be more grateful to be with a community for whom showing up is what we do, no matter what life gives us. 

Someday I think I’ll find the flow in Watercolor. I’m relieved mastery is not my goal – at 64 there is just not enough time! When Teacher Jess asked me at our first lesson, “what are your goals?” I said, “I don’t really know. I just want to do this.” But as our lesson began, I stopped, “I know the answer to the question,” I said. “I’m looking to see differently.”  

Friends, we don’t know if these times we are in will end anytime soon, but no matter what they give us I suspect if we keep showing up we will also learn to see differently. In the worlds of the famous Chinese Proverb, “may we live in interesting times.” Thank you everyone for another amazing year on the floor. See you in 2022!  🙏🏼

Dahlias

A year ago, when I signed the lease for my “Zoom Dojo” I didn’t have a sense of how long I might be streaming classes from this 300 square foot studio. I only knew I was on a mission: to keep us in our bodies, and this was the best environment I could create to stay focused on my purpose. When the vaccines rolled out a few months later, we were all so relieved. At the same time, the deep sense of focus with no other distraction but to stay present and alive would have to change as we all ventured back out into a larger world. 

The late winter and spring log-ons told stories of family reunions, dinner with friends and travel. It was delightful!  By April when I finished my own course of Moderna hope, I began to think about in-person classes again. A month later I made the leap and signed a short-term lease for the summer term. That first in-person class this past July was strange! It was the same studio we rented before the pandemic and I think for many of us, to be back in the ‘before’ place brushed us up against feeling all that had happened since we last stood on this floor. At the same time, it was effervescent. Maskless smiles beamed. We shimmered with sharing our flows together after being singular in them for so long.  We were so happy to see everyone, and I was proud to see in 3-d flesh and bone how people’s forms and their presence in their bodies shined. Mission accomplished! 

Within three weeks however we all intuitively started wearing our masks to classes. Stories of travel and family and friends still populated our conversations, but so did reports of break-through infections. Surrounded by the delta variant, the politics of not caring for others, heat, smoke and world events, our effervescence began to dull. I personally found myself in an unexpected netherworld, attempting to re-ignite my optimism and sense of mission, but being too exhausted to do so. For the first time since March of 2020, I had to admit to myself how hard this has all been, and continues to be.

A few weeks ago, instead of starting our Friday classes with the usual Standing Meditation & warmups I asked the students to have a seat and take themselves off mute.  How are you?, I inquired. Students quickly opened-up about their own fatigue and grief. Sure, the conversations were mixed with the joy of having seen family, a sense of pragmatic relief that their life is more open, but everyone also expressed a realistic frankness about the wobbly times ahead. 

As I write I recognize how vulnerable I feel about our world right now. I didn’t want to write about this, of feeling tired & full of ambiguity, I wanted to write about Dahlias. I wanted to tell you how much my patch of 80 means to me. It’s the most I’ve ever grown. It’s the most intentional I’ve ever been in growing them. One might say I was on a mission.

Dahlias were originally food for the Aztecs, but once the Spanish saw how beautiful their flowers were they never were food again. Now, there are over 64,000 cultivars, not even close to that many have names and classifications. They come from tubers, cuttings and seeds. Their colors are reds, whites, purples, yellows, pinks, lavenders, dual tones, triple tones and more. Their shapes are cactus, semi-cactus, decorative, lancinated, anemone, ball, waterlily, pom pon and more.  Their sizes are tiny, medium, large, giant and more. Like we humans, they are all from the same genetic origin story.  If you fall for this flower, you fall hard. 

From June until the first frost my home is filled with Dahlias They are a wild ride to keep up with and anyone who has more than a few plants fills their vases daily and gives bouquets away faster than they can cut them.  “Don’t you hate cutting them?” I’m often asked. No, not at all. Because when they are cut, they push out even more flowers - almost overnight. And when the single tuber that engendered such summer insanity is harvested in late fall for winter storage, it has now multiplied into five or more tubers, each with the embedded message to bloom anew after just a few months of rest.  It’s quite the magic show. 

Dahlias are a practice, just like Tai Chi & Qigong. Cultivating them both teaches me about life and fills that life with beauty and purpose. This year more than ever each one’s presence in my life has given me a place to put myself when I am overwhelmed and exhausted and unsure about the times ahead. The mission has become more personal. Water the roots, raise and lower my arms.

So here we are, back to navigating such an unsure place. Like teaching from my Zoom Dojo one year later, I’m not sure any of us thought we’d still be here. And so, How are you?  As for me, from day to day, I’m never quite sure. But what I do know is I know I have a garden full of Dahlias. I have a Tai Chi & Qigong practice.  

***

To Moon students, thank you all for an “interesting” session! 🤣 Truly, the hybrid experiment had it’s bumps but I think we found our flow. I’m looking forward to our break and to see you back starting Sept. 26th. Keep practicing!

 Photo is of Dahlia “La Luna” (Informal Decorative, Giant, Yellow: IDAAY)

Year 26: The Dream

“Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was a person dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a person
”

— Zhuangzi

---

In the middle of Luohan class last Wednesday I remembered a dream I had the night before. I was an older woman – in my late 80’s, early 90’s. I was clearly me, standing somewhere. I didn’t recognize the space per se; I just knew I was standing in it. As I stood, I was reflecting on my life. Even as I write about it now, I clearly remember the feeling of looking back on the span of my existence and seeing it all so clearly. I was not emotional about it, because I knew it all. I was just feeling interested and rather pragmatic.  My feeling was something like, “hum…oh, yes, this all did happen.” As I was contemplating my life a voice came from wherever those voices come from and said simply, “What you have done did make a difference.” “Your practices, how you dedicated your life to them did make a difference.”

Then, in that place between dreaming and waking I remembered myself as a young woman. I remembered the troubled person who, through a series of missteps and ignorance, almost lost her life at only 19. I remembered the intentional choice I made then to change my life and that is when I began my journey in the martial arts.  I woke up. The remnants of the dream faded as I went through my morning routine. By the time I logged onto 9:00 am Luohan, I didn’t remember anything about it. As I was leading the class in our practice the dream vividly reappeared. At the end of class I shared the dream with the students. 

Whereas the dream was a surprise, the message was not. I’ve never had any doubt about the strong impact and value in my life and in the lives of everyone who learns and practices. Because of them, I’m a different person than any number of options I might have become, because of them, I have witnessed the lives of countless people become better, because of them I have experienced my teachers over decades and have seen their health & spiritual development continue to express high levels of vitality well into their elder years. Besides, if there was even a lingering doubt hidden away in some dusty mental cavern, this year erased it! 

Frankly, once I started, it never occurred to me that I would ever stop my training. I simply loved it more than anything else I could imagine doing. However, it also never occurred to me to make teaching these arts and practices my career. I was selling Real Estate!  But, before I knew it teaching grabbed me by my scruff and gave me no choice about my future. After many years of mentorship, training and encouragement I decided to make it official on May 25th, 1995 by incorporating the name my Tai Chi class gave our school. Each year, on this day, I pause to think about and feel immense gratitude for my life, all the people I have encountered, all the people who helped me and believed in me and my dedication to an unusual path for a Nebraska girl.

This year along with feeling all I am feeling, I am also feeling, as I suspect many are, a bit burned out from the efforts made this past year. For me, because I’m 64 soon, edging ever closer to Medicare, I know it’s important to pay attention to that, to reflect, evaluate and modify as needed. I’m not really the type to ask myself if what I do has any value because it’s obvious that it does.  At the same time, I’m really listening to this dream and feeling its message deeply. In what ways may I, like many who have come before me, continue to live my life, manifest my work, share what has been gifted to me? In what ways may I do so, so that when I am older than I am now, I may look back at it all with bright eye vitality and confidently say, “it really did have value.” 

Someday after all of us are long gone, after Covid and all that surrounded this year socially and politically are left for the history books to analyze, judgements of value will be made. Hopefully they who judge will have the wisdom to tell the story well. Hopefully all the suffering experienced will have mattered. Hopefully it will at the very least, have pushed the wheel of human consciousness forward in ways we have not been able to manage thus far.  And perhaps then, we will all encounter as I encountered last week, a voice that clearly says, “what you did here really did matter.” 

Happy Birthday to Embrace The Moon Tai Chi and Qigong. Year 26. Thank you for being a part of the journey. 

Respect, Salute, 10,000 Thank you’s. 

Kimberly Ivy
Founder

Here is my telling of the dream to the Luohan class

Here is Embrace The Moon’s 25 year history, written last year during May in lieu of the big party.

Bamboo

The weather was grey, blustery, cold today and I resisted going into the garden. Windchimes clanked all morning long – not the lovely, beckoning tinkle of a soft spring day, but the hard crashing of wood against metal. “Come outside if you dare,”  they provoked. So many other things I could do: study Spanish, practice Luohan, read about the Liver. Or Argentina. But the remaining days of my Spring break are narrowing, and there is still much to be done. This is the year I demanded redemption for all the other years of May’s arrival and me regretting not doing what needed to be done in April. And so I put on my fleece, rain/wind pants & boots, grabbed my fierce determination along with a shovel and headed outside. 

Finishing the Bamboo relocation project had been on my agenda since early last summer when I let my studio rental go because of the pandemic. I had held on for months, despite not having a lease, in hopes the world would not turn out like it did. When I moved out I decided to keep the bamboo that was in one of those silver horse troughs at the entrance. I’ve always succumbed to the cliché of bamboo at any space I have had aesthetic control over and have given away a lot of it when I moved on. This year there was so much loss in my world, in our world, I decided I was keeping the bamboo. 

Wrangling the bamboo from the container was a significant project. I spent hours digging the clumps out. I yanked and tugged and pulled hard. I could have really used some help but was alone due to the lockdown. It was hard. It was a mess. I remained resolved. I stuck the tall canes and their dirty roots in the back of my car, leaving the hatch open because they were so long. I drove from Fremont to Beacon Hill on side streets at 20 mph training my eyes on road and trunk hoping I wouldn’t lose hatch or bamboo to the abandoned city streets. I had no idea where I would plant them. I just didn’t want to lose one more damn thing to the pandemic. 

There is an area of my house that is hidden, no one sees it. It’s a weedy nightmare no matter how hard I try to contain it. My first teacher taught me this: pay attention to what is not seen. And so like keeping my car trunk tidy, folding & organizing my dresser drawers, and keeping my kitchen cabinets well organized, I do my best to take care of this small weedy strip along side this unseen part of my house. Inevitably the weeds explode into the heat of summer and take a stronger root than I can manage. I know it’s not personal, but it feels like it is. I give up and wait for winter to trick me into thinking they are gone. 

I decided the salvaged bamboo was going along this forbidding side of my house that no one ever sees. A last-ditch effort to win the 7 year battle of will and aesthetic as it were. Over the next week I purchased three more horse troughs and 12-3 cubic feet bags of dirt.  It took me 3 trips to haul it all back home – if you don’t count the 2 additional round trips to exchange for size after I realize I wanted a more symmetrical look. (One of the dire consequences of my world and my work is you can rarely say, “good enough.”) I weeded one more time, put down weed cloth and hauled those troughs out of my trunk and down 3 flights of garden stairs.  

I positioned them several times so they were symmetrical in that place no one would see. I pushed wheelbarrow’s full of 1/4” minus rock from the lower level of my yard up, across the mossy back yard past trees and thorny blackberry canes and over to the sidewalk. I was grateful my body still worked as it toted 5 gallon bucket by 5 gallon bucket down the stairs and hoisted them up and over into the troughs. And then there were the 3 cubic feet bags of dirt….. I had at the bamboo one more time, attempting to make smaller clumps out of the entangled concretized roots. I used shovel, saw and hori-hori, to moderate avail. At the end of it all I said to the bamboo, good luck, we’ll all just do our best and hope we live through winter. 

Today, months later, a few dead bamboo canes and millions of human deaths later, I picked up my fierce determination once again and in the midst of this cold windy April day, finished the project. Memories of my first teacher, his lessons and all that has happened this year mingled with the discordant song of wind chimes. Last fall I had delivered 2 yards of bark along with the garden mulch in hopes of finishing this project then. Now, I pushed wheelbarrows of the shredded cedar up the back yard hill, past mossy grass, trees and thorned blackberry canes. Grateful to have a body that still works I carried the mulch down garden stairs bucket by 5-gallon bucket. I dumped it on the weed cloth, surrounding the bamboo planters. 2 yards of bark and six hours later I raked it even.

All the while I thought about this past year. As gardeners do I dug around in the metaphors of shoveling, hauling, dumping and raking clean. As gardeners do I hoped to find the lessons of hope, death and redemption in that which is seen and that which is not. I feel neither happy or adrift that I completed this project - a quiet metronome on my to-do list, ticking away behind the scenes of this pandemic cycle. It’s simply done. I’m vaccinated now too, also a completion of sorts, and I’m looking for the lessons there too. I’m supposed to feel something like happiness or relief, I guess, but really the anxiety I have felt now for over a year remains. The side yard looks great for now even if no one ever sees it, but I still have no idea how to be in the new world.   The weeds are still there, underneath it all. I suspect they will reappear sometime soon and perhaps that is simply the cat and mouse game we will always play.

The Pandemic Temple

When I thought about writing a blog for our one-year pandemic online anniversary I confess to being speechless. Those who know me know I am not a woman of few words, but the notion of trying to pen an articulate line encapsulating these past 365 days just made me want to take a nap. A really long nap. I wrote plenty at first, a trusted method for finding some meaning or logic or path through the landscape of the unknown. But a year later whatever this time was and continues to be seems less at a shocking forefront of life and more simply the day in and day out of what we are all doing. Nothing much to say, really.

Throughout this year I have worked harder than I ever have in my life to teach something of value, to hold a container for people not just to learn but to find their way through this very strange time. And all the students worked hard to see, stay steady and learn within this uncanny place called a screen. No one would have planned it thusly, however, it worked. We learned much this year. Both skill and dedication definitely improved. Yet it’s been more than that. 

Through our process together we created sometime bigger.  Every week, if even for just one hour, we logged on and well, we might say we logged on and entered our Pandemic Temple. This Temple held everything for all of us and something different for each of us. This year, in this temple, we experienced so much – we aged and yet we also became renewed. We breathed in and out stillness and movement; we shared in each other’s joys and despairs, our wishes and fears, our knowings and our having no idea at all. Perhaps most importantly though, in our isolation we stayed connected and deepened into those connections in ways we could otherwise have never imagined. This time, our practice, in this temple, kept us present with it all.

As our lives shift again, may we not soon forget all we have felt and learned. 

I asked a cross-section of the Moon’s long-time students, who had history with our school pre-pandemic and who stayed with their practice during this past year, and a few of the distance learners who came to the Moon this year, to speak a little about what their retreat to this unforeseen temple meant to them. What follows are their words, unedited with the exception of all the specific appreciation they each said to me, which I prefer to keep personal between each student and myself. If you wish to leave your own comments about what this year of your practice, whatever it was, meant to you, I invite you to do so in the comments section. Who knows, perhaps someday in some time capsule someone will find these words and think, “wow, that must have really been something.”

---

I practice every day. I have sign in my workspace that says: “Practice is what I say it is.” My practice has now become who I am. Yes, I aim to do my form each day, but not out of a feeling of obligation but out of thankfulness for letting me feel grounded and for the joy of moving. Sometimes practice is making art, or taking a walk. It’s about saying to myself, “today, this is my practice.”  I miss practicing alongside of people, but not attending class just wasn’t an option. I’ve still made progress online and even digitally the community is strong. Thankful for my practice.

Fiona, Luohan 15+ years

***

Your question took me by surprise because until now, it never occurred to me NOT being able to have class!  You made the transition feel effortless, at least for me as a student.  It was different, yet the same!  It has been the “thread of normalcy and continuity” all this time. Having a practice that is able to connect people, no matter the physical distance, is amazing!  To breathe in and out together has been amazing!

Joyce, all classes, 25+ years, founder

***

This year, with all of its challenges, has had more "silver linings" thanks to the Moon. It has offered a space to continue to learn, to grow, and to connect to the world around me. The gifts of community, the opportunity to learn a system I've been wanting to study for years (and from a teacher dedicated to keeping the teachings pure) have indeed been like the moon- a force of gravity and source of light! 

Tonya, Luohan 1+ year (and many more prior to the Moon)

***

Being able to continue Qi Gong online kept me nourished during this time of deprivation.  It kept me anchored amid all the waves.  And best of all was when we practiced in Volunteer Park, in the early morning, under the tree, nourished by the air and the green, anchored on the earth.

Deborah, Luohan, 15+ years

***

I am not going to lie. My Sunday trip to Seattle was a meditative way to seal the end of my week. As an only kid who had to survive weekends with an unhinged dad, Sunday evenings carried that depressive residue for most of my adult life. The trip to QiGong became a decade long re-do and I looked at the evenings as a new comfort and sanctuary. When COVID hit I watched that live comfort disappear almost over night. Kim reacted immediately by creating a zoom alternative and being extremely diligent to keep us all safe. This year of Sundays has  been an anchor, something I can put into my body. In my bedroom or front porch and stay connected to something lasting, ancient and good.

These practices that Kim continues to share with supreme integrity are durable and so are we. There is something simple and true about Sunday evenings for me that is changing my older pattern and the pandemic didn’t interrupt or end our continuation. I'm glad I stayed with the rest of us and that Kim kept the space going. Doesn't matter if it's a big studio, a park or my front porch, the form continues and so do we.

Lucas, Luohan 10+ years

***

Being at-risk for the virus and living alone has meant considerable isolation for me this year. The Moon has proved once again to be an anchor during a period of crisis in my life and I am extremely grateful that Kim has been able to keep the community together. By working hard on improving my practice every day I’ve been able to turn this year into a period of growth and progress instead of stasis. I am greatly looking forward to the return of hands-on correction and in person group classes, however. 

Kirk, Tai Chi 15+ years (and many more prior to the Moon)

*** 

Who knew that such a positive experience could come out of a tragedy such as the Covid epidemic?  Although I miss being with our Qigong and Taiji friends in-person, I’m very happy to have “met” new friends, from Seattle and around the globe.  The simultaneous class-instruction and solo practice (at home during class), I believe, has led to a deepening of my practice.  The classes have helped to stave off loneliness and give my weeks structure.  Being a teacher gives me a sense of purpose, to help others through their pandemic-time journey as well as filling me with joy to be with groups of such lovely people.  

Laura, all classes, 15+ years, Instructor with the Moon

*** 

I moved to a new town in a new state just in time to quarantine for a pandemic. No new friends, no playing with my grandson, no traveling, no playing Chen Tai Chi. Agony! But with incredible luck, I discovered Embrace the Moon classes had gone virtual. I've spent this pandemic year taking up to five/six Zoom classes a week, cross-continent. SC to WA. Building on the little bit I knew, learning fascinating new skills way beyond my capabilities, in classes with strangers who filled my friendship void merely by studying together. My kudos and my thanks to Kimberly and all teachers for somehow knowing how to teach a martial art on a computer, thus keeping me sane, grateful, and surviving. Pandemic or not, I'm all in for virtual classes forever!!

Ann, Tai Chi, Qigong, 1+ year, and many more before the Moon

***

It has been important to me to be able to access Qigong classes during the pandemic. I remember one lesson last spring, as we were all still wrapping our heads around what Covid was, when Kim focused some of her instruction on breathing. In that session, and since it has been powerful to connect to my own lungs, my own breath as a way to ground in a time when respiration carries so much fear and possibility of disaster. 

Candance, Tai Chi, Luohan, 10+ years

***

My qigong practice has been essential to getting through year one of the pandemic, and it has deepened considerably. Somehow the introvert in me has relished doing my practice alone on-line. It’s one of many weird paradoxes that exist in the time of corona. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll beat feet right back to the dojo when we can go. But this kind of practice has forced me to take a deeper look into each aspect of the form because you aren’t around to make corrections. In that sense I’m a more self-reliant practitioner. We continue to learn in small and large ways.

Anon, Luohan, 15+ years

*** 

Attending class always increases my sense calmness, strength, and flexibility, but attending class during the first 6 months of the pandemic was a lifesaver. When my normal routines and interactions suddenly disappeared, I felt anxious, lonely, and disoriented. It was grounding and reassuring to have QiGong class twice a week, and it helped me feel connected not only to the teacher and the other students, but also to my internal processes, the natural world, and thousands of years of culture and tradition: a sense of the eternal rhythms of life, in the midst of pandemic dislocation. It was especially wonderful to take class outdoors (with masks, socially distanced!) in parks during the summer.

Elizabeth, Luohan, 10+ Years

***

Practice in a Year of Pandemic

Well, THAT happened - 12 months of uncertainty, chaos, and loss.  And yet, we are still gathering, still standing, still practicing. This year it has been especially important to be able to depend upon ourselves, to exercise the discipline of routine, and to remember that there is very little that any of us can control.  My practice with the Moon keeps me grounded and connects me with a community I value.  When we breathe in and breathe out - when we flow the form together, the cacophony of daily life quiets and I encounter the present moment with a quiet sense of gratitude.

Cyndi, Luohan, 15+ years

***

This past year, knowing that come Friday I will be joining my virtual Luohan community for an hour of practice with has been like heading to a harbor in the storm. I come away centered, connected and refreshed, with gratitude for Kim and my fellow practitioners spread across the globe and zoom screen.

Steven, Luohan 10+ years

***

Qigong in a Pandemic Year: 

Stillness 
Introspection
Growth (?)

Lao Tzu - Wisdom
Breath - Connecting body to earth and sky
Xie Xie Ni, Laoshi

Zoe 5+ years (and more prior to the Moon)

***

Tai Chi classes and practice have and continue to sustain me, both physically and mentally, through the pandemic, which included a cross-country move. It has allowed me to focus on the positive and settle into calm. I don't want to think about what this past year would have been like without four weekly sessions immersed in Tai Chi.

Carol, Tai Chi, 2+ years

***

Connections and continuity. The Zoom practice was integral in keeping me sane and helping me take my practice deeper.

Barbara, Tai Chi 10+ years

*** 

My qigong practice with Kim and Embrace the Moon community has been such a gift during the pandemic. Centering my mind on my body and seeing others do it at the same time have helped me stay connected to community and the celestial heavens! Thank you everyone! 

Paula, Luohan 10+ years

 ***

I've been extremely grateful to be able to be able to continue my Luohan practice via Zoom. I'm over 60 -- one of the groups that was identified as vulnerable early on -- and I didn't feel safe practicing at the dojo with others around me once it became clear how widespread Covid was becoming. So much has changed as a result of the pandemic, but the through line of our Luohan practice has remained.

Lindsay, Luohan, 20+ years

*** 

Although there is a communal feeling about practicing in person with others and benefits to getting hands-on corrections, home classes have provided a chance to take short breaks or observe you for details that might have missed. 

Bill, Tai Chi 15+ years, instructor

*** 

While I haven't attended the real-time Zoom versions of Kim's Monday 10:15 tai chi class, I have downloaded and watched and practiced with the recorded versions of each session. I've missed out on individual live corrections (other than in a few private lessons with Kim during the year). But being able to watch Kim's instructions on individual movements over and over again has been immensely helpful. That ability to repeat and repeat the instructions was something I often longed for when I was still attending weekly in-person classes. Kim deserves a lot of credit for learning about and using the technology so adeptly.

Connie, Tai Chi 15+ years (and many more prior to the Moon)

 ***

Zooming into Qigong classes this last year was like coming home - there you were, there were all the familiar faces (and a few new ones) of my classmates on this journey, and there was the practice, unchanged.  What a welcome touchstone in this world that had suddenly become turned upside down. I have been so grateful for those hours, to have this place - and our definition of “place" has expanded -  to come to each week, to be together with one another and our practice.  

Carol, Luohan, 15+ years 

***

Virtual tai chi classes have helped give me a sense of normalcy and routine during the pandemic. They have helped me continue to feel the sense of community that I have always gotten from classes at the moon. It has helped keep my body healthier during a time when I am experiencing more bodily stress and injury from doing all of my work in front of the computer. I think I am making it to class more regularly because it is one of the few things that feels so reliably good and grounding during a time when my access to those kinds of activities is reduced.

Joanna, Tai Chi 10+ years

***

I appreciate how Qi Gong helps me keep grounded no matter what is happening. I attend the Monday Qi Gong class, and it is always such a good way to start the week - in a gentle but powerful way, getting in tune, resetting energetically, getting supple and flexible to face whatever the week may bring. 

Izumi, Qigong 15+ years

*** 

As the structures of my life shifted and changed with the winds of COVID news, recommendations and developments the constancy and regularity of Embrace The Moon practice anchored my body and spirit.

Michelle, Qigong 5+ years (and many more before the Moon, Instructor)

***

After two years lost to poor health (2018 and 2019), 2020 was to be my year to really get going again. Then Fearful COVID restrictions kept me fairly homebound; but Zoom "attending" Monday morning Qigong practice put some structure in my week, tone in my body, and hope in my spirit.  I am so thankful for those blessings.  

Lynnette, Qigong, 25+ years, Founder

***

My own Tai chi journey started back in 1996, but with as many years training as not! A chronic knee injury, working abroad in the Himalayas, starting a family and then moving away from my original inspiring Chen teachers after only 2 years, meant I became used to being a part-time, distant, drop in student.

Amidst this year of 'Covid' suffering and unimaginable losses, the rhythm of zooming, downloading and practising, has become the heart beat for my year; I have felt nourished and nurtured by the Moon. I am so grateful for the opportunity and access to a weekly flow of robust training, guidance and inspiration that has deepened my love of Tai chi. I feel like a mature student, who has returned to study with the excitement and hunger for knowledge, and so grateful for this unique and special experience.

Anon - Tai Chi, Luohan 1+ years with the Moon, and many years prior

***

The practice for me has been learning how I learn, and what gets in the way: Impatience at myself for not figuring it out as fast as I want to, or for forgetting, or for being lazy and skipping a practice day. But then bringing compassion to myself when this happens, and realizing that the learning process is nonlinear, that forgetting and remembering are like yin and yang, that I'm learning to be more playful and humorous when making mistakes and just explore. The plus side is that Tai Chi has helped me become more graceful and mindful when moving in everyday life and work (walking, running, sitting, and working as a professional massage therapist!)

Brian, Tai Chi 1+ years

***

Go with the flow, flexibility in mind, introspective and sense of calmness independent of what's going on outside. I garden (adopted plants, gave them home, made my own organic compost, grew organic food, brought smiles to passersby as they stopped and took the time to smell the flowers, etc) more than I ever did along with the practice to keep myself grounded and connected with Mother Earth. Nourishing the Earth and mySelf through qigong, taichi and all the other special classes and workshops this year greatly nourished my overall well-being (body, mind and spirit). Despite the social distancing, the zoom classes taught by Kim made us continuously feel the authentic connection with trueSelf and humanity and along with my meditative/mindful gardening more, I’ve extended the energy vibration to have met and connected with my neighbors and passersby more than I ever have.

Delia, all classes, 2+ years with the Moon, and many more prior

***

Qigong had been keeping me sane.  Between the politics and the pandemic I sometimes felt like I should crawl under my bed and stay there for the duration.  But the process of moving and breathing and focusing together, even though we're in different spaces is very grounding. The act of doing something positive, if only for myself, helped me through the worst of times. The fact that others were doing it too made me feel connected to them, a secret network of breathing, moving, mindful people. Without it I would have seized up physically and mentally.

Elaine, Qigong, Luohan 15+ years

***

When we first went into lock down, I felt so isolated and alone.  It was great to attend multiple classes a week, and I felt like I was able to make more progress than I had in quite some time because of the repetition.  It was wonderful to see people in person "on line" and practice with a group.  As someone living alone, and before my school knew how we could teach online, I really needed the contact. It was great to have a chance to do a Qigong class which I had been curious about after years of Tai Chi. With my back issues over the last few years, I have had to leave early frequently.  It's been nice to be able to sit when I need to and then rejoin class when I am able. And most recently I have loved having classes with Scooter.  He's an awesome teacher. Even though I really miss in person classes, the weekly opportunity to check in and practice with everyone has so helped me to maintain my sanity (well, mostly) during this very challenging year.

Mira, Tai Chi, Qigong, 15+ years

***

"Body like an Ess"

From waist up, moving,
We own our Hollywood Squares.
Screens, Sunshine, Streaming.....

Dean, Luohan 15+ years

---

This is the Word Art that came as an amalgam from our contributors. The larger words are the most frequently used. You can zoom in to read the smaller ones. Feel free to contact me for the high quality jpg or png if you would like one for yourself and I’m happy to send you one with our compliments.

Happy Year of the Metal Ox!

“May you live in interesting times.”

— Chinese blessing (and curse!)

Well, last year’s Year of the Rat did a great job lowering the bar for future New Year’s successes! 🤣. However, I’m thinking this year’s Metal Ox can find a way of showing off for us - just a bit! 🤞 No matter what the Tao has in store for us we sure know how to make lemonade out of lemons and I trust nothing much can stop that from continuing. ☯︎ I wish us all a great new year full of everything that keeps us and ours healthy and keeps all of us happy, safe and growing.

In our tradition we tossed the coins in this Monday’s Qigong class for our annual reading from ancient book of changes, the I-Ching. We ask the I-Ching (ee-ching) to give us advice on the coming year, to let us know what the conditions are for the time ahead. The I-Ching reminds us the only reliable truth is the truth that everything changes. As always, it was an interesting read. There are many many translations that you can even find free online. Even if you have no idea what this is, you will enjoy looking around if you have an interest. In the meantime, here is Brian Browne Walker’s translation for the “answer” to our question: Hexagram #40 with a changing line of #4, thus changing into Hexagram #7.

Happy New Year. May we live in interesting times. Done and done!

Kim

To the I-Ching we asked: “What are the conditions and advice for the next year?”

解
Hexagram 40: HSIEH

LIBERATION; DELIVERANCE

A change in attitude
delivers you from difficulties.

The hexagram Hsieh signals the beginning of a deliverance from danger, tensions, and difficulty. The I Ching instructs you here on both the cause of deliverance and how you must act in order to fully benefit from it.

Deliverance is always caused by a change in our attitude. The Higher Power uses conflicts and obstacles to teach us lessons that we refuse to learn in an easier way, but they only darken our doorstep until we have acknowledged the lesson. So long as we ignore or resist difficulty it remains our constant companion; as soon as we accept its presence as a sign that some self-correction is needed, our deliverance begins. Truly, the only way to dispel trouble and regain peace of mind is to change our attitude.

The I Ching also teaches us that we have several responsibilities once our deliverance begins. The first is to forgive the misdeeds of others. The image of the hexagram is that of a powerful rainstorm washing away what is unclean. This, then, is a time to clean every slate and begin anew, meeting others halfway with gentleness and patience.

Next, we are advised to restore our inner balance and see that it is maintained. Deliverance offers us a return to equanimity, and we must avail ourselves of the opportunity conscientiously. Finally, we are counseled not to try to force progress, even though the time is beneficial. If we have truly changed our attitude, we have become detached, innocent, modest, and accepting. In this state we allow progress to unfold naturally according to the will of the Sage.

CHANGING FOURTH LINE:

Free yourself from inferior influences, both in your self and in your acquaintances. Otherwise there is no room for the superior to enter your life.

***

師
Hexagram 7: SHIH

COLLECTIVE FORCE; THE ARMY

In times of war it is desirable
to be led by a cautious and humane general.

The hexagram Shih is a guide to proper conduct in the face of adversity. It is inevitable that we sometimes face trials and challenges in life. How we prepare ourselves, by whom we are led, and how we conduct ourselves during these "wars" determines whether we are victorious or not. The I Ching counsels us to follow the example of a first-rate army.

A truly powerful army always consists of a number of devoted soldiers who discipline themselves under the leadership of a superior general. If he has achieved his position through force, the general will not last for long and he will lose the support of his army when he needs it most. If on the other hand he has become a leader through superior conduct and even-handed treatment of his fellow soldiers, then his power is well consolidated and it endures.

So it is with us. Only by conducting ourselves humanely and with persevering balance can we have a genuine influence in trying times. There is always the temptation to be led into battle by our egos, but we are guaranteed a humiliating defeat if we turn our inferiors loose in this way. A superior person achieves victory in the same fashion as a superior army: by putting his inferior emotions under the guidance of his superior emotions, and by proceeding cautiously, modestly, and with the continual goal of achieving peace and detachment.

You are advised to prepare for a trial now. Your chances of success will be determined by how you conduct yourself within and without. If you remain alert, modest, just, and independent, all will go well. If you are gentle and humane, you will have the allegiance of those around you. Advance cautiously when the time is right, and when it is not, do not allow your ego to stand in the way of retreat and disengagement.

Remember that the ultimate victory in any battle comes when we regain our inner independence, our neutrality, and our equanimity. These can only be won by placing our inferiors under the leadership of our superiors. Do this now, and success will be yours.

Taken from The I-Ching translation by Brian Browne Walker

Profit & Loss Statement: 2020

This week I had a burst of executive functioning (something that has alluded me over this pandemic year) and began to prepare my 2020 business financial documents for my accountant to take a look at. Historically I’m quite good at keeping on top of financial matters, but this year’s Pandemic roller coaster kept me more with my hands in the air than on the lap bar in front of me. Like all of us I had to manage a fair amount of anxiety and a great deal of change. Adapting myself and my business to the rapidly moving present moment took priority over 941 deposits. When I looked at the calendar and noted the forthcoming end of year, I realized I had no clear idea what my balance sheet looked like for 2020.  I grabbed a pot of tea and opened my shoebox.

January & February’s records were straightforward. Income is always strong during the first quarter. Early registrations, new members, annual subscriptions and student’s new year enthusiasm buoy my business and set the financial tone for the entire year. Expenses are straightforward too: rent, promotional materials, Chinese New Year decorations & food, plane tickets for guest workshop presenters and my own training, miscellaneous purchases. These first two months have always eased my small business owner anxiety, generating not just capital, but my own excitement for another year ahead doing what I love with people I enjoy. 

March’s records began simply enough too, until I reached mid-month. A charge for Zoom showed up. Seeing the charge threw me back to the moment I packed up my computer from home, grabbed my Airpods and headed for the dojo. A wave of nausea set in as I recalled placing the computer on a chair to the side of the dojo, sticking an ear bud in my ear and began teaching both to students on the floor and to those in their homes. Seeing that charge hurled me back to the foreboding of that moment. 

As I continued through my records of this year, the 2020 story of my business unfolded. The rest of March reminded me how much hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies I bought when we were still at our physical location. And then in April the charges to Zoom increased – we were all fully online at home. Frequent charges to Amazon came through for the experiments with better sound and light. Seeing each month’s rent receipts reminded me I kept hoping “it” would be “over” soon. Finally, those stopped and were replaced with receipts for my little blue wagon, table, hotspot, and Rode’s microphone for the summer hybrid classes. I remembered how I felt packing up the cart, rolling it across the park, masking up, simultaneously logging on and turning to the live students, “feel your feet.” And the charges for more masks, so many more masks, more hand sanitizer and wipes.  As I slogged through those months I reached August and September. The receipts for a 50” TV from Costco, LED lights, an air purifier and a new lease for a 300’ foot room near the Zoo reminded me of where I am right now.

Looking through the expense side of the balance sheet gave me an opportunity to feel my trauma. Because I am one of the lucky ones: I’m still employed and relevant, I have a home and too much food in the pantry, I am warm and loved, I never dared allow myself to believe I could also have been traumatized by this year. And yet, reviewing the financial records and their memories, I have to accept I was. With no warning, my friends and community went from flesh and blood, from laughter and stories, from our future plans together, to thumbnails, the mute button and the great unknown. People I expected to see, trainings I expected to have, vanished. People I knew died. I teach now in a small room, alone. It has been its own a death in a way. And I’ve been so busy adapting my work I hadn’t really taken the time to feel the grief. Reviewing my records gave me that chance. 

At the same time, my records also revealed the miraculous that 2020 has brought into my life. Because most all registrations were online, I was able to scroll through hundreds of names and their class payments. I recall logging in that first class when we were fully online and seeing so many smiling faces. Many payments are from students who had moved or people who live in other countries. I now see them on a regular basis. I also scrolled through the numerous and generous donations students made to keep the Moon and its inhabitants afloat. I was again deeply moved by each person’s compassion and insight. I also saw the names of people who made their annual registration in late 2019 and early 2020, but chose not to join online this year; I haven’t seen them but they never took me up on my offer to refund their money. I saw the PPP deposit in Spring and remembered how fortunate I felt as many of my other colleagues did not get any. 

I also saw unique expenses I would never have seen had it not been for the pandemic year of 2020. I may not have gotten on an airplane, but I have travelled to South America, Australia and Bulgaria for classes. I have no doubt I learned more than I would have and met people I never would have, had this year not happened in the way it did. Finally, I saw charges that should not have been on my business charge card at all, but ended up there. They were to several garden stores through these months. I will always remember each class from home I taught or took, looking out at tulips, dahlia’s, hummingbirds and my cat romping. I witnessed each season of our pandemic year morph into the next from my own garden sanctuary.

In the midst of my record organizing I received an email from a student. She shared with me how much the classes have meant to her this year. I responded in kind and then moved the email to a file I created last March called “Covid Communications.”  I feel someday I’ll want to remember this time and what we all said to each other. Lately I’ve been feeling the intimacy our shared trauma and the unique ways we’ve adapted our connections have allowed many of us to get to know each other more deeply than we may otherwise have. For me I feel what we may have lost in person, perhaps we have gained online.  

In the end, it’s looking like my business like did alright. And not just because of this, I will always consider myself one of the lucky ones, the ones who are among the most fortunate this year.  I will say I experienced trauma, but I will never say I suffered. On the contrary, I will remember this year as the year I experienced the grace and generosity of so many amazing people and the wholly sustainable and adaptable essence of our practice. 

Wishing you all well this holiday season. Stay well, adaptable and loving. 

Thank you for being a part of my year and my life. 

Respect, Salute, 10,000 Thank you’s. 

Kimberly Ivy
Founder, Embrace The Moon School for Taijiquan and Qigong
Est. 1995

Randori

“The most important thing is to make your mind like the Taiji ball.”

— Grandmaster Chen Xiao Wang

Randori (pron. “Ran-door-ree”) is one of the more rigorous training methods in the art of Aikido. You begin by standing in the midst of a circle surrounded by several “attackers.” One by one in increasingly rapid succession the attackers rush in towards you with strikes and kicks and grabs from various angles and heights. It is your job to fend them off by ducking under, moving away from and throwing them off as rapidly – well, more rapidly, than their attacks. You actually do not wait for them to attack you, instead you sense and perceive their aggression and strategy and move in towards them to derail their intention, sending them on their way before they penetrate your space. The training ensues for as long as your aerobic capacity and mental acuity can last. It builds tremendous capacity to concentrate, move quickly under stress, problem solve and outwit. It was gobs of fun. It was among my favorite Aikido activities. Little did I know how useful this training would become.

You don’t need me to tell you all the “attacks” that have been coming our way over these past six months. We all know the Pandemic is not just one virus, but itself the circle of attackers moving full throttle into our circle. Pick anything: public health crisis, systemic racism, poverty, crumbling economies. Pick anything: inequities in online schooling, short supply chains, an unwelcome personal health diagnosis. Birth, Death, and all if it in-between is surrounded by a big circle of strikes, punches and kicks coming into our field, in increasingly rapid succession. How many of your friends and you comment about the weird sense of Time right now? it’s as if the video was on slow motion for a bit, but now has kicked into fast forward. It’s the Matrix. And it’s the red pill. 

I, like you perhaps, made the blue pill mistake of thinking last March that in a month or two the circumstances would change for the better. That we could all wipe the sweat off, shower up, go home and toss our soaked uniforms in the wash. We could sit around the table in our favorite restaurant with our posse of pals, each telling our stories about our weeks in lockdown. “And wow wasn’t that something. Thank goodness we nailed it fast and that’s done and dusted.” Nope. Here we are six months later still dealing with flinging limbs of life ever faster coming our way.

All students and many friends of mine saw me and my little blue wagon this summer. I carted it from class to class and park to park. It was full of techniques intentionally designed to meet the opponents coming my way. The punches and kicks of class location & size restrictions, distancing requirements, mask requirements, some people wanted in person, many still stayed online, all this threatened to derail not just me, but those under my charge. I could have just stayed online or held just in person classes, but that would have severed our community and I was not willing to do that without a good fight. 

And so in my wagon were my ways of meeting these opponents: my computer and phone, two hotspots, a large car charging battery, two microphones, an HD camera, a tripod, adaptors, chargers, a clock, a folding table with chairs, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, masks, garden flowers, water and a copy of Lao Tzu. Before I went into battle I thought a lot about what I needed. Luckily I had training, luckily I also had back-ups and luckily I had a team of fellow trainees who were game for the fight. I planned very well. My team showed up in person and online. Still there were attacks we could not foresee: sprinkler roulette, grids dropping, microphone, camera & Zoom glitches, volleyballs, kids and dogs rolling around amidst our class. One day I even forgot my computer. And yet, still our team managed to not be taken out. Honestly, it was at times a sweaty, exhausting endeavor, but we did it. We grew, and there was not one day we didn’t laugh at the audacity of it all. 

I didn’t quite see how applicable my years of Randori training were to become decades later in the then unimagined Pandemic future. Yet somehow over these past six months I recognize the usefulness of that training and all my training in ways I have not before. There is the obvious: the mindfulness, the breathing, the relaxation, the concentration and especially there is shared time with the community of incredibly gracious and open-hearted people who are similarly attracted to these practices. There is more though. There is the capacity to problem solve when confronted with the unknown and unimagined. There is the capacity to keep moving, physically yes, but more so, mentally. There is the capacity to always look for a different approach when one thing doesn’t work.  This cultivated aptitude is perhaps the hidden treasure within all martial and internal arts practices. 

Techniques of Battle, Summer 2020

End of Spring Session Muse: A Love Letter

As we close out our Spring session 2020, I reflect on these past three months. In so many ways we have used this opportunity to our advantage. We have definitely gone deeper into our practices and we have come to know ourselves and each other better than we might otherwise have. It hasn’t been all bad! One might say we’ve even had some fun. My monitor’s thumbnails introduced me to your cats & dogs, your living rooms & porches, your art, your loving companions scooting quickly behind you, trying not to disturb your lesson. You have some awesome Zoom backgrounds! Through your screen you have seen my garden transition from Spring to Summer: Tulip, Iris, Rose, Hydrangea and more all set against the shoji screens of my living room dojo. You’ve met the famous Mr. Boots, who seemed at first to like Tai Chi over Qigong but now seems content to nap through both. A true Taoist Master!

Strange times deepened; we did not shy away from our screens or from each other. We adjusted our camera angles and microphones to see and hear better. We asked more questions. We sought advice on how to navigate our small spaces. We talked about our families and our travails. But not too much. More, we kept finding ways to laugh and connect – we shouted out our names! I got comfortable teasing you. We did all this while off-screen the world spun. The Pandemic tore viciously through our lives. Festering boils of Racial Injustice erupted. The metronome of ignorance, greed and political divisiveness droned on. In conditions where we had many damn good reasons not to, we showed up, we adapted, and we got on with the business of learning and practicing.

Amidst great trauma and reckoning we created a profoundly unique container. One that held our fear, our ambiguity, our anxiety, our stress, our vulnerability, our courage. Even people in our school who could not log on – people who were working in health care, in grocery stores, in mental health, those whose lives were consumed off the Moon screen by other screens, still knew in our practice, we had their backs. As brutal as these past three months have been, they have also illuminated our true nature. Yes, we learned to topple mountain ranges, to dodge right and left, to reach into the night sky and grab the big dipper. More essentially however, we learned how to express our bright nature with more vigor. We stayed clear, present and generous. We remained steady. Our container held.

At the beginning of all this I was off to Estes Park to sell my mother’s house. I, like all of you, had my plans derailed in an instant. There is a small opening now; I feel I should take it, so off I go. Ironically it will be over the 4th of July, a holiday mom loved. I have great memories of hanging out at the Stanley Hotel, mom and I weaving our way through tourists and locals alike to grab a hotdog and to listen to the bands set up in front of waving flags. It was corny, it was pure mid-west July 4th kitsch, it was our tradition. There will not be any celebrations this year, but there will be drinking tea, looking out the living room window and watching the clouds transform over Long’s Peak. I look forward to enjoying the view mom loved so much.

I’m glad to get the stalled process going, but I’m also a little scared to leave the container we created over these past three months. It became so strong, with such resiliency, that stepping out of it now feels strange, as if I’m traveling not to home, but away from it. Traveling not to Estes, but out into a vast untethered future. I truly feel that in this random configuration called our lives, all of us were perhaps brought together by a bigger design, to a place we could hold fast together to what is real and authentic. To remind ourselves we were not alone as the waves crashed against us.

I encourage all of you to also take a break. You’ve worked so hard, I have so much respect for you. Enjoy the weather, renew yourself as best you can. Download the recordings, but don’t stress out about watching them. Just tuck them away for future reference. Do please keep practicing so that you keep your blood and qi flowing. This is crucial for our health. And please! Practice outside, in nature. Relax, and enjoy yourselves and keep your body/heart/mind strong and resilient for the next round of the unknown. Because we know this is our life right now and it will be for some time to come. We also know we can rise to whatever circumstances we find ourselves in, with pliancy, grace and love.

As we transition out of Spring session, please allow me a personal note of deep gratitude to each and every one of you. Your enthusiasm and dedication kept me sane and healthy and relevant. I could not have asked for more, so thank you. And again, to Doug, Laura, Karri, Scooter, Nicholas and Michelle, the Moon teachers who did Yeoman’s work right along with me, thank you so much.

Respect, Salute, 10,000 Zillion Thank You’s to all. See you, in one place or another, mid-July.

Big hugs, lots of love,

Kim

Showing Up

This is an excerpt from the final chapter I wrote for the Moon’s 25 Year History. If you’d like to read the entire post or story, you can click here.

The winter session 2020 was ticking along just fine when the pandemic hit our soils. I had been watching my friends in China deal with the virus since November by frequently logging onto WeChat (Chinese Facebook). The Taijiquan community was online offering video lessons to help with immunity and stress. Everyone wore masks.

In March our floor classes became smaller and we shifted to mixed online and in person. Then on March 22, I no longer felt safe or responsible teaching in person, so I called it 100% online. The next day our Governor put out the Stay at Home order. I didn’t have time to process what was happening on a personal level, I just knew I had to get our classes up online. Clearly we were heading into the unknown in traumatic and terrifying ways with no experience of how to make our way through it. The only thing I knew how to do was keep training and teaching like I always do.

Most all the Moon students converted to our online classes. As well, long ago students returned and other friends from around the country and even across the Atlantic regularly Zoom the Moon. Moon’s Doug, Laura, Nicholas & Scooter got up and running with their own classes and supporting me in our larger mixed level classes. Michelle took over Larry’s group for the time being. Students donated over $3000 to help with new expenses and studio rent and to make sure anyone out of a job could still come to classes. Experiencing how quickly we all, teachers and students adapted and once again dug into our changing circumstances, has been profound. And people continue to learn, continue to improve. 

Early in my training my first teacher said to me, “all you have to do is show up.” I guess I took him seriously! And now, in the midst of the weirdest times of our lives, when it counts more than ever, we are all showing up. In a very real way, this moment is exactly what training prepares us for. Sure, in “normal times” we show up for classes, we suffer our own inadequacies, we laugh, we cringe, we get glimpses and we lose them. We think about quitting. But we do not. And because we keep coming back to the floor, to our practices, we develop a stability, a capacity inside of ourselves to be able to deal with the unexpected. We may not even realize we have it until we are tested. And Covid is testing us. 

I remind myself and our Moon students: this time is our time. It is our time to show up, it is our time to practice staying grounded, flexible and centered. It is our time to breathe in and out, to step left, raise and lower our arms, Topple Mountain Range and Pound the Mortar. It is our time to log on from our kitchens and living rooms and basements and gardens and meet each other as we do every other day, on the training floor. In doing so we will come out of this stronger. We are already more pliant, more flexible. We already have greater heart/mind capacities than we knew were ever possible.  

Embrace The Moon School for Taijiquan and Qigong turned 25 May 25th, 2020. As we did for the past 2 months, we opened open our computers, click on Zoom and logged in. We entered from the waiting room and chatted before class just as we do in person. Then, we practiced together as we have for the past two months, from our living rooms, gardens, porches and kitchens. We practiced together as we have for the past 25 years, and as we will continue to do into the unknown future.

One Movement

From 2005 Tai Chi Magazine’s tribute to Madame Gao Fu
(edited)

Each time I stood in front of Madame Gao Fu for a lesson, any Tai Chi poise I thought I might have had, vanished. “Stop,” she would say, after just a fraction of movement, and proceed to correct the most subtle of finger shapes before allowing me to continue. 

I wondered if I would ever make it through the form at all. Even after the two years it took to learn the basic 24 movements our lessons in form correction often stopped at the first movement and stayed there for the duration of my hour with her. There were times I was extremely frustrated, and she knew it. “Do you want to learn quickly and on the surface?” “Or do you want to learn slowly and understand?” she said politely. 

The truth is I wanted to learn quickly. I had been seduced by the swift explosive movements of Chen style and I yearned for my body to illustrate that knowledge. The deeper meaning of the “energies” took back seat to my desire for flash! Yet behind this elegant grandma with her deep ocean eyes and silky soft skin was a strong taskmaster – I wasn’t going anywhere near flash – I was going to stand there and harmonize the internal with the external. 

It is said that Chen Style Taijiquan is both the original Taijiquan and the most difficult to learn. Circles and spirals, expansion and contraction, rise and sink are difficult concepts to grasp mentally, much less embody. Perhaps I was not the only student of this art who thought, “Why bother!” And the truth is that if Madame Gao was not such a compelling force of nature I might have quit. 

I contemplated the many other available approaches to learning Tai Chi, especially those that would yield me copious numbers of showy forms. Yet even in the midst of those thoughts I did not want to miss my lessons with Gao Fu. And for years at 7:30 am I did show up, raise and lower my arms, and hear her say, “stop.” 

“I don’t understand,” I finally said one day, midpoint in another excruciating lesson of stopping. I was holding back tears when she stepped closer to me and placed my hands on the middle of her belly. She then laid her own gentle hand on top of mine. We stood there still for a moment, waiting for me to calm down. 

Madame Gao began to turn her dantien. At first there was no physical movement, there was simply the feeling of my hand following a path down into the earth. As I felt the sinking, I felt my own body relax and settle. Soon, I was aware of a vast deep well, a sensation until now, unknown to me. From this place a subtle, clear vibration began to emerge as though as conductor in the orchestra pit had just raised his stick and signaled the musicians to tune their instruments. The hum of the musicians faded, then a silence and a settling. 

I waited. I felt the beginnings of a new rhythm. I recognized a few notes as harmonics evolved. There was a rising. “Is this peng?” I wondered. And then a settling. “Song?” I mused, “Or is that shu?” Then “kai’ as the space within her expanded and opened and “he” as the space closed back to an inaudible center. Within a moment, a grander melody began to take shape. It included more notes that I could recognize, yet at the core, the theme was constant. Then an unexpected symphonic crescendo of alternating circles and sinuous spirals released mightily from her body. As she continued dynamically weaving measure into measure of powerful muscle, skin, energy and blood, my senses breathed in her complex score. 

Many lessons followed over the next several years. I doubt I ever mastered them as well as my teacher would have hoped for me, but somehow I did learn several more forms. Along the way I lost my desire to express them in flamboyant ways, preferring instead to go deeper within and listen. 

Even now, in the days of practicing without Madame Gao, I can hear her stay, “stop.” My frustration still shows up at times but rather than wanting to quit or learn differently, I remember laughing with Gao Fu after we heard an obvious clash of notes in my form while trying to achieve perfect pitch. 

As with me, every person who had the great fortune of experiencing Madame Gao Fu’s treasure trove of skill and big-hearted personality tells a tale of touching her. The experience of feeling the lessons within her body, along with her sweet, joyful spirit might be what kept us practicing. Madame Gao Fu left us all with scores of lessons to follow for as long as we have the patience. As for me, I hope someday I might make just one movement infused with the perfect musical score I felt that day. In the meantime, it’s the scales.

---

Practical Applications

“The eye goes blind when it only wants to see, “why?””

— Rumi

The centuries old Laojia Yilu (Old Frame, First Road) is the fundamental training set in our Chen Taijiquan system. Its 75 movement (plus or minus depending on how one counts the movements) progression systematically takes the learner through the rules of the art:  alignment, relaxation, stances, footwork, waist/dantien movements, angles, energies, and so on. Each stage of the form is logically designed to provide both an opportunity for study of these rules and to gradually integrate them. Traditionally, a student would not move on until a basic level of comprehension was achieved at each level, and once achieved, one reworks the new levels of understanding into the previous stages. Over years of focused systematic study in this way, one’s skill definitely improves. There are multiple forms and application possibilities within the system and once the basics are mastered, these other more complex methods are much more accessible. It is a magnificent physical and mental educational system!

Often a new Taijiquan student will ask if I have or know of a list of associated applications for the various movements within the Laojia Yilu. It’s a fair question from a curious mind. And there are lists and YouTubes that show sincere and skilled teachers demonstrating applications for this and that move. Depending on the class we ourselves demonstrate possible applications. It can be somewhat helpful to see and experience these training options in what can be a challenging art to penetrate. Ironically though, the founding family of one of the most powerful martial arts in history does not focus on applications in this way at all.  We’ve all experienced our teacher Chen Xiao Xing’s response when we become too fixated on what something “means.” He’ll playfully whack us or give us “the look” and stay “never mind!” And back to the basics we go. 

Indeed focusing exclusively on a specific technique for a specific movement can be limiting and even dangerous to our progress. When we emphasize A movement with A application, B with B and so on, we may end up with a very large cache of memorized movements, but what happens when there is something outside of that list? No matter the length and breadth of any list, in a martial art there will always be the unpredictable. There will always be something we don’t expect. So how do we train for that? The answer is right in front of us. It is not to memorize more; it is not to attempt to conceive of more as yet unimagined scenarios and their possible responses. Instead we go back to the basics. We train relaxation, alignment, footwork. We grind out the simplest of patterns. We eliminate anything superfluous. And we do it over and over and over again. The discipline in learning anything complex is to stop fantasizing and keep practicing the basics.  Training in the basics over and over again reveals the possibilites of our art. We do not train for the myriad “I knows,” we train to be able to deal with the circumstances we do not know.

Right now, for me, in the midst of our global pandemic, my practices and how my teachers have trained me to think about them have never meant more to me. We are indeed right in the middle of no scenario we could have ever imagined. There is no A=A, no B=B.  In fact, the alphabet is not even written in recognizable script. How then to navigate the world? The only way I know is to go back to the basics. So every day I set up my living room practice hall. Every day I turn on the Zoom app and my screen lights up with students who similarly situate themselves. Over our online month together I have seen living rooms and bedrooms and patios all over the world become personal practice halls and every day we practice together, right in the middle of having no idea. We breathe in and breathe out, we shift right, we shift left. 

This time is the real test of our training systems. Perhaps better stated, it is the test of how we ourselves train within them. The attacks are coming faster and at much different angles than we have learned responses for. As learners and teachers, we are searching our collective knowledge base on how to deal with this. We are coming up confused, unclear and adrift. We find there is no application. Instead, there are big glitches and few answers. Many systems and people within them have no idea how to work with the current circumstances; they cannot think beyond A=A, B=B. Because of this lack of flexibility, because of this trained historical rigidity, there are big losses and great suffering. Yet at the same time all over the world, there are glimpses of great training. There are profoundly flexible, experimental and creative responses. Here we see the body and mind’s capacity to pivot, shift and change while we navigate this overwhelmingly unfamiliar time. Yes, this time is the real test of our training. Do we flail around locked up, losing our balance because what we know, no longer even exists? Or do we, like our Taijiquan and Qigong training teaches us, demonstrate the most essential and useful application we have in our cache of techniques: our capacity to change, to move flexibly and pliantly within the unexpected. I posit if we practice the latter, even just a little bit, we stand a better chance of coming through this and offering something of value to the future. 

As Grandmaster Chen Xiao Wang says, “the most important thing is to make the mind like a Taiji Ball.”

***

Additional edit, December 21, 2023 - this morning a student sent me a link to this blog I had long since forgotten. It has been 3 years and 8 months since it’s writing. It’s hard to wrap my mind around that, so much has happened we didn’t see coming, personally, in our country and in our world. Most of it very difficult.

Since it’s writing we’ve kept practicing. We’ve kept a continuous presence online, even moving out of my home and opening a dedicated “Zoomjo.” We were fully online (with a few park classes) for almost a year. Then, we re-started a few in-person classes, fully masked, windows open. It was cold then; we taught and practiced in masks and puff coats during that time. Masks became optional in late 2022. This year, 2023 we settled into a rhythm of “normal” in-person and online. This week I finally closed the streaming studio and with the exception of a couple of classes again from home, we are back in person. Forty four months later. My head spins.

At the beginning of the pandemic I had one goal in mind: to do everything I could to show up in these circumstances we never saw coming. And when it was over, I wanted to look back and know that I had done everything I could to keep people on the floor, in their bodies and practicing. I wanted to look back and know I did that one thing.

It’s not over, it's just changed but I do look back over these past 3.8 years and know I did what I set out to do. It wasn’t just me though, we all kept each other going, my students and I. And by doing so I know we kept our larger community going too.

We passed our test and continue to pass. We keep ourselves flexible and like a taiji ball. Yin change to yang change to yin. Breathe in, breathe out, flow through.