I can has tap-dancing class?
Our classical Indian dance class ended in December, and the Thursday lunchtime activity being offered by Employee Health and Well-Being this semester is Tai Chi. The instructor kept talking today about communing with nature and pulling energy from the ground and storing our qi in the "qi bank" just below our navel. It made me just as uncomfortable and out-of-place as when I have to go to church, and this distracted me from the mind-opening and consciousness-awakening or whatever it was we were supposed to do. I really like the concept of qi¹, just like I agree with a lot of the stories in the Bible. I appreciate all these things as symbols and parables and interesting ways of looking at the world, but I don't actually believe in them. But the way Tai Chi is being taught here, belief in the qi seems to be assumed. You can't just accept it as a symbol, because you have to push it all around the room and feel it flowing through you. I feel nothing. I have an active imagination, but not that active.
Indian dancing did not require faith in the supernatural! Give me back my Indian dancing!
I'm pretty sure Tai Chi is supposed to relax and energize you, and not fill you with existential angst. I think I'm doing it wrong.
srah - Thursday, 10 January 2008 - 9:40 PM
Tags: employee health and well-being, exercise, faith, religion, tai chi
