My journey to this new Transformation technique began with my involvement in Tai Chi. Learning and practicing Tai Chi since 1979 all over the world to the present time is in fact one of the defining characteristics of my life journey. For over 40 years, I have practiced different forms but mostly yang forms in various configurations. Though I have many books on Tai Chi, I have generally not found them particularly useful. The number 108 has various “spiritual” connections to meditation and numerology and Form 108 was typically the standard reference for me but, Tai Chi 24 and later Tai Chi 21 were also significantly useful. My years in China solidified my practice. As my career as an international consulting Marine Biologist took me all over the world, I would find myself practicing Tai Chi in my hotel room or a hotel garden in Morocco, Thailand, Kiribati, Oman, the Philippines and other places around the world by myself. If I happened to be somewhere near a park I could often find some Chinese practicing and I would step in the back of the group and follow along. Though from time to time someone might say, “That was beautiful” or “I would like to learn that”, I never really put any effort into being a teacher until I neared retirement and settled into one place in northern California. Tai Chi was always the way to get up and move around in the morning. It required both physical and mental attention to do it right. It was long enough to require discipline to remember the sequence and enough body movements to know I was getting my body fluids and muscles moving around. The 108 form definitely instilled a feeling of life force moving through my body. I will comment on that at a later post.
Combining Two Traditions
I had also practiced yoga off and on over the years and finally committed to becoming certified as a yoga teacher, but I always taught yoga and Tai Chi in the same class. My intent was to give my students the tool of mindfulness of body state and motion as one of the main benefits of both yoga and Tai Chi. I was part of the Prison Yoga Project for nearly a year, going to San Quentin State Prison on Tuesdays. I taught classes at the Watergate but increasingly found that I was modifying my Tai Chi practice spontaneously. I became less and less interested in the Hindu names of the yoga asanas and the Chinese names of the Tai Chi movements. When I studied under the Tai Chi master, Zochi Young, and learned to attribute English terms to the Tai Chi movements a new universe opened up to me. The connection between intrinsic human reflexive behavior, somatic learning of healthy behavioral triggers and the short attention span of most people living in the 21st Century all came together as what I now call TRANSFORMATION Tai Chi. Three seconds is the new reference time frame of attention. So a 20-movement Tai Chi form evolved into the 90-second mind body practice integrating Tai Chi and yoga to manage stress and unlock your potential evolved into a book. The evolution of the book is a story for another post.