push_hands qi wen Tui shou. The next level of tai ji quan. Once you have learned the sequence, once you have learned the alignment, once you have begun to comprehend (however minimally) standing meditation and its extensions in the form, once you've found yourself frustrated 8 times 8 times, then it is time to put it in motion. Ideally, learning all aspects would occur simultaneously. First learn:then act:yetlearn while acting:yet act while learning. No image or description of yin and yang will get you even close to what it is like to __________put__________ it___________________in _________motion________ Have you ever sat at length and watched the water just downstream from a powerful waterfall, just beyond the mist and the bubbles, just beyond the obvious? Those cauliflower wart wellings that push up through themselves into themselves, those are hints. LISTEN YIELD STICK FOLLOW Until you have sensed one becoming the other, you cannot begin to understand yin and yang. Stay up very late; do it tonight; watch the sky carefully, carefully, mindfully. Watch when the light is there before it is there. How can this be? The light is always there:The darkness is always there. One always becomes the other:One always contains the seed of the other. You're getting closer, how could you not? The sliver of yang has been growing in you, growing in your darkness. Put your hand on the cold pane of glass, watch the water become wet wind. Push me over, but watch who falls. 011229 ... cube T'ai Chi Tui Shou: Pushing Hands - the major 2-person practice of T'ai Chi Chuan, which develops internal strength, alertness, balance, intention, and calmness-in-action. Available on video tape for a modest sum from Don Ethan Miller (Mastodon Productions). Sometimes a search engine helps keep us grounded... ³ 011229 ... ever dumbening there has to be a small eddy—timeless changeless—where i can stand and rest for a moment. but "meeting melissa" hangs on the wall to remind me that even static electricity isn't. the charges build, itching. whether you have the capacity to jump the gap, whether you build a bridge, you can't stop moving. big broken clouds pass through the rain-scrubbed night air, stars and l.e.d. lights compete for my attention. wooden slats mediate the dialogue between gravity and my feet. with my mind shifting yet again to smooth white where your hip and side meet, i realize that even raw excited emotion has to breathe. 030426 what's it to you? who go blather from