Tai Chi

Tai Chi
Originally uploaded by flickr photographerno1

The Chinese characters for Tai Chi Chuan can be translated as the 'Supreme Ultimate Force'. The notion of 'supreme ultimate' is often associated with the Chinese concept of yin-yang, the notion that one can see a dynamic duality (male/female, active/passive, dark/light, forceful/yielding, etc.) in all things. 'Force' (or, more literally, 'fist') can be thought of here as the means or way of achieving this ying-yang, or 'supreme-ultimate' discipline.


Tai Chi, as it is practiced in the west today, can perhaps best be thought of as a moving form of yoga and meditation combined. There are a number of so- called forms (sometimes also called 'sets') which consist of a sequence of movements. Many of these movements are originally derived from the martial arts (and perhaps even more ancestrally than that, from the natural movements of animals and birds) although the way they are performed in Tai Chi is slowly, softly and gracefully with smooth and even transitions between them.
www.chebucto.ns.ca/Philosophy/Taichi/what.html



breathing in
breathing out
in silence
rhythmic movements
motionless emotions spout
they practice tai chi
each morning
alternatively
at carter road
promenade
their hideout
energy from within
hitting the oppositional
forces from without
calorie s burnout
a physicality
a mental bout
I watch the master in his work out
the novice disciple
an elephant walk
at the command of the mahout
sheer slow motion beauty pull out
me with my camera this
pulsating theatrics stake out
me my soul re invigorated
without a workout..




dedicated to a poet in a poem tai chi italy