Joyless Tai Chi, Joyful Tai Chi

my, my
Marlie and I got down to Berkeley
finally yesterday,
early,
which wasn't easy

but we did it

and she took a 7:45 AM
yoga class
and
I got to a 8 AM
Tai Chi class

gad,
it was so joyless

all these people
obediently trying
to get their hips Just So
and their arms Just So
and their feet Just So

and then after 40 minutes of
Just Soing
being told that the central
and first principle
of their practice was Relax

and no one
in the room
seemed anywhere near
Relaxed
so busy and stuck and efforting
were they
trying to get it
Just So

reminds me
of course
of how most yoga is taught
well "taught"
isn't quite the right word,
since teaching implies
learning

what we are talking about
is
training

as in training a dog to do tricks

and this tai chi
in training bodies
to try hard
to be Just So

was missing this grand opportunity:
what fun
and interesting
and joyful
and exciting ways
could we learn
about hips, and legs, and arms
and feet

there are lot
and
they weren't
being "taught."

oh, well.

I had the outrageous
thought in the class:
I could be
should be
a Tai Chi
master,

not 'cause I'm any so great
at the art,
but because someone to teach this
with the joy
and learning
that it could b
e
taught is desperately
needed

la
la

yoga tai chi
and the brain
classes
will be taught Sat Sept 6,
Mon Sept 8 and Wed Sept 10
to start off five week
classes

see the Group Lessons
link to right
(or
Click Right Here, if so inclined)
if interested

come be your own
Master
as you
learn
how much fun
and amazement it is
to be in and of
and through
this miracle of evolution
the human brain/ body
living in
the now
thing

ciao
chris

today, without camera

today,
Saturday
without camera,

we are in Berkeley

this strange "we"
that is not going
to last forever

and I always knew
that
and somehow
I wanted three years in this
new house

and so
be it

we are in Berkeley
and we are taking Marlie's daughter
around

Sweet Rose
with a new fun hairdo
and an excitement about life

we do a farmer's market
always a feast in Berkeley
and then we do a fancy
pizza at the cheese board

if you know Berkeley
you know that scene
if not
fine

we go to a park
they eat the pizza,
or Marlie has a few bites
and then Marlie and I feast on
cucumber and goat cheese
and
pear

cucumber and pear from Sonoma
goat cheese
raw milk goat cheese from the market

we feast,
and the park is next to a carousel
and we ride the painted
ponies
going round and round

and up and down

life

we go to a Botanical Garden
Tilden Botanical Garden
full of plants from California,
trees
and shrubs and
flowers
and vines
and pathways
and a creek
and rockway
delicious paths built in the WPA days

new impressions

we
ride a steam train
in another part of the park

we walk through the Rockridge
College Avenue section of Oakland
and take Rose
to the Bart

we don't burden
Rose with our "problems"
she has a wonderful day

we have a nice day
giving her a nice
day

simple
coming home
feeling and acting in love

and then
we go
to sleep

mystery:
what will become of all this

and life
keeps moving
on

where?
I don't know
we don't know

scary?
exciting?
confusing?
invigorating?

Yes.

Good.

Undoing Stress, and Undoing the Marlie/Chris thing

Undoing Stress, and Undoing the Marlie/Chris thing:


this is the subject
and the flow
and the learning
of the blog over
at TaiChiYogHealthWeightLoss blogspot

give it a look
if you want

love
and
learning
and
nowing
to you,
at
all
and every moment
you would
love
like
enjoy
and benefit
from this

All of Life

life has many faces
and the outside
face
isn't
always the inner
joy

which is always
there,
even
when
we forget

so, hey, some days we are happy
and we know it

some days we "think"
we are unhappy
and that usually makes
us
"feel" unhappy

and the word "makes"
is very interesting

what if we took over
and said:
I am, now, making myself
unhappy

and then,
guess what,
we can return to one of the essentials
of real life,
the essential of
curiosity

And from the curiosity
at our core
we can
wonder,
ah, yes,
we can
wonder,
wonderful person that we are,
just how are we
making ourselves
unhappy.

A grand question:
How am I, right now, using my so called thinking,
and my body rigidity
and my mental inflexibility
and my seeing the world as all about me, me, me
how am I using all this not-really-me-ness
to make "me"
unhappy?

So, wonderful life,
on the "good" days,
and wonderful life,
and wonderful opportunity,
on the "bad" days,
when unhappiness arises.

The opportunity to wonder
to explore
to inquire
to go inside
to listen
to discover
to recover
to uncover
who we really are
beneath
the so-called
'unhappiness."

And to discover, recover and so on,
the HOW of
how we "make" ourselves
unhappy?

Unhappiness good?
No.
Unhappiness bad?
No.
Unhappiness a trip we trap and trip
ourselves in?
Yes.

And the clowning around in the faces
above,
ah,
sometimes
on other, brighter days,
we can pretend to be caught in
the spells
that sometimes really catch
us

Play around with how
lost we can
be sometimes

And inside that play,
the realization
of how amazing this being alive
thing
is.

The wonder of life

Here's the secret to life:
we are alive.

That's it.

We were born.
Some sort of end to the earthly existence happens.

And now,
right now,
we are here, wherever your here is,
wherever my here is.

This is good.

The secret to life is:
I am alive and that is wonderful,
and you are alive
and that is wonderful.

Wonder.
Means not knowing.
Not knowing means a chance to
learn
a chance to
discover
a chance to
be more, know more, feel more, understand more
and to
thrive in that change.

What do you wonder about?

I wonder about how to spend all of my moments
in the states I reach sometimes:
states of being profoundly happy with myself,
and with others.

I wonder about how to create a world
where human beings are free
to take care of each
other
and to take care of
the Earth.

I wonder how to create change
without being "upset," and "uptight"
and just plain old angry,
at the way certain systems
and institutions seem to be
set up
for the destruction of the Earth
and the making it hard for many
people to live decent, healthy and happy lives.

I wonder how to be happy
all the time,
without resorting to denial
and the phony happiness of
thrashing around
and making a lot of noise and hoopla and using
myself and/or the Earth much more
than is kind.

I wonder
how we
as the family of humans,
can rediscover that certain habits
are not helping us much,
whether at the relationship level when we
have the habit of blaming our spouse for
when we feel bad,
or at the national level,
when many governments have the habit of organizing
around attacking and being at war with
some defined "bad guy."

There is more to wonder about.
Even now, talking, and thinking and writing about
"war"
how can I
how can you
stay in our present,
in our breathing,
in some sort of peace and happiness.

If I am wonderful,
being full of wonder,
you are wonderful, too.
And what, can you happily
and peacefully wonder about?
And when is the wonder unpeaceful?
And can that change over the course
of this book?

I wonder what it will be like
to write a book
over 108 days,
starting each day's reflection
as a blog?

I guess we'll find out together.

the ups and downs

sometimes we get ourselves in a hole

like this:
we say
and or
do
something we wish we
hadn't done

okay
it's done

what next?

look back and figure
....
where was i operating from?

give yourself this bracing
bit of reality:
we only have three choices
or how to be:
1. low functioning robot
2. high functioning robot
3. awake

and given that:
we were probably in
our low robot
mode

oh, well

happens to me
happens to you

what next?

how to deal with it:

low robot:
attack ourselves, feel bad, attack the "other"
for how we went south of how we know
we can
be

high robot:
realize the behavior:
trace in back to one of our patterns
look at the other person as a real person
maybe even
do the Work of Byron Katie

awake:
realize, not as an idea,
but as an experience:
now is my life
this now
feel and taste and experience
this now
and realize
from that
that
then was then

look back on then
from this amazed
and sensing ourselves right now
and following our breathing right now
place

and be amazed, delighted, a little sad,
and amusedly compassionate to our own
dumb ass self back then
for having gotten trapped in its low robot mode

or
awake:
do the Byron Katie work,
from feeling the pencil in our hand,
the love in our heart,
the chair under our butt
as we write feel think realize
our way
back to
sanity

good

Fall Classes, starting Saturday Sept 13, four weeks

Classes for the Fall
Access Your Brain to
Become
an even more Amazing Person

No actual classes
in motion:
get a group together
and a place
and some mini miracles
can happen

below,
just a few
ideas
of what can be done..




Yoga & the Brain
Mon. 12:30 PM, Sat. 9:30 AM

Backs, Necks, Shoulders,
Mon. 2:30 PM
Sat. 10:30 AM

Injury, Surgery Recovery
Mon 6:30 PM

Musicians, Surgeons, Hands
Thurs, 6:30 PM


Increase Skills and Enjoy Life More

• Think more clearly


• Anti-Aging


• Move with more ease


• Re-discover how much you love to learn
  and
  be alive


• Decrease and Make Irrelevant Various
  Aches and Pains


• Recovery faster from Surgery


• Perhaps avoid surgery


• Recover from Strokes and falls and accidents


• Rediscovery how much of you there is



Starting the Second Week in September
(on the weekend of September 13
and running for 5 weeks,
to end the week of October 4-9)

Group lessons

Yoga & the Brain
Mon. 12:30 PM, Sat. 9:30 AM



• gentle, healing, vastly expansive


• "working out" the brain
  as our "body" learns to love itself more


• anti-aging as we learn new patterns,
  increase thinking and
  problem solving abilities
  and
  come to greater ease








Backs, Necks, Shoulders,
Mon. 2:30 PM
Sat. 10:30 AM


• also hips, and feet and hands


• finding joy, connection and learning
  in areas of ourself to which
  we may
  have lost a sweet and useful connection


• come to a higher level of functioning
  in anything you wish to do


• understand the spine, brain connection


• move in ways we might have forgotten for years,
  or may
  never have known


• learn to "love ourselves in
  gentle
  specific
  and non-efforting
  ways


• feel better


• have fun




Injury, Surgery Recovery
Mon 6:30 PM

• gentle, easy, on the floor


• working toward better than ever


• learning, not performance


• feel better


• have fun





Musicians, Surgeons, Hands
Thurs, 6:30 PM



• opening the ribs, shoulders hands


• letting more air in


• freeing our mobility


• delighting in easier touch


• delighting in easier movement

---

These lessons are all
my own inventions.
You will find them no where else.

They are based on my 127 days of training
in the Anat Baniel Method,
including certification in her Mastery Programs for
Special Needs Children
Vitality and Anti-Aging
and
High Performers

as well as
200 days of training
in the Feldenkrais Method

These lessons
can appear to be "movement lessons"
and are really
brain lessons,
anti-aging lessons,
regaining vitality lessons,
regaining our skills lessons,
and rediscovering discovery lessons

---

Costs:
One class a week: $80
two classes a week: $100
three classes a week: $120
four or more classes a week: $140

drop in rate:
$30

yoga teachers:
add 50%

enjoy
learn
love each moment
and
smile

time and the meaning of life

do you have time to breathe
good
we all do

do you have time
to be
happy?

good,
we all do

do you have time
to love
yourself
and others
and the Earth

good

we all do

cute talk on time management today

she was fun
and made money helping people
be better robots
and was a sweetie

and here's a few things she didn't know:

people need to waste time
and
just BE

time is for beginners
breath is for finishers

time isn't real
when we are now

she does know:
time counts when you
agree to meet someone
at a certain time

and on the way
to the appointment:
are we here
or worrying
about living up to our clocks

this is
slowsonoma
dot
com

slowing down
we can
be aware
of the great
miracle

we are alive

ah,
sweet

and to add
some spice
of learning

and some water
of loving

and ah,
a good life

heal the Earth,
ah,
all the better

the idiocy of stretching, 33

barn in morning


a muscle can contract
it can stop contracting and release and return to loose

if a muscle is chronically contracted
and you try to "stretch"
it
the body has an automatic "stretch reflex"
to tighten against that,
so if you do succeed in
"stretching," you will be
actually only succeeding in tearing
the muscle

ah, so what to do?
find the muscle on the other side
use it
and
as you use it,
see just how much
easily
and honestly
you can uncontract
which is to say let go
which is to say release
which is not to say stretch
the muscles on the other side

so "stretching" hamstrings is cruel
and useless
and using the quadraceps
and honestly stopping when hamstrings bind
and honestly seeing about letting go
as the effort goes into softness at hamstring side
and appropriate use
(to lengthen leg, not to stretch anythng)
of the quads

make
sense?

if not,
come get some lessons,
amazing results in
all sorts of areas of ones
life
from this:
use effort where it should be used
let go where it should be let
go

good

Wednesday ramble, "Warrior Posing"

Non warriors with the great teacher: Earth and flower and Life

Sad but true:
the warriors are out there
posing away right now.

The Russian hot shot.
Some Georgian hot shot.
Even the brilliant little boy who
is playing President, is busy posing:
I am warrior.

I can send enough
bombs
troops
guns
planes
(not myself, of course)
to blast,
kill,
push away,
push around,
stop,
bully
get my way.

E gad. A world lived out at the level
of sandbox bullies,
whether the so called Terrorists,
or the now hung dead Bad Guy Sadaam Hussein
or the Bush Sr
or the Bush Jr
or the Lyndon Johnson
or the JFK
or the Truman
or the Hitler
and on
and on.

.....


And warrior poses.

What are we at war with?
Our bodies?
Doing it wrong?
Being weak?
Not being young any more?
Our teachers for being better at
poses,
than us?
Our bad habits?
Our wish to not be in pain?
A lifetime of not being perfect?

More at today's essay
at WakeUp-Feldenkrais.blogspot.com

boy's stuff, girl's stuff

Marlie had her feet made pretty henna designed
at the green music festival

(More Marlie fun at marvelousmarlie.blogspot.com)

and I had
a faucet break down
and delved into the weird joy
of not knowing what I was doing
as I puttered and experimented toward
"getting it"




taken apart faucet


bunch of tools I ended up not needing



tools I actually needed



all's well that end's well, including the 42 cent part that was necessary


more chris fun,
right here,
see Index

and maybe even at
WakeUp-Feldenkrais.blogspot.com/

Want to Hear About my Rough Childhood ? ( Yawn)

Flower outside house of imperfect Mom


Playground of school I went to for about half a year


One more imperfect parent

One of the one hundred
percent
(100%)
great losing beats
of all time

is to
wish
want
demand

that the past have been different.


'Twas what it was.

One in a zillion
people
have perfect
parents

the rest of us
have this or that which
could
have been
better


and
the crummy parts
are the heart love
muscle
building
parts

because
as Jesus said:
anyone can love someone who's
treating
you
super duper well

so
anyway...

good parents
okay parents
lousy parents

it's all a chance to
love
various people
for what they
were
and
not some ideal
of how they should have
been

and
wouldn't
that be a nice
model
for how
to love
ourselves?


Yes.

Thoughts toward health and anti-aging

Echinacea

Nice little start on
this over at yoga/health blog,
"Thoughts toward anti-aging, and August"
and why not
ramble
a bit more?

So::::

What is health,
anyway?

Getting outside
when you feel the call.

Feeling the call
when
you have the call.

Eating good food
early in
the day.

Eating food you
grew
near your home
no car between you
and the yum
yum
your backyard
your land
a bike ride away at some other organic
clean
sweet land


Checking out
as much raw food as you can
sweetly
and non-rigidly enjoy,
and what a time of year now
is to enjoy that.

Staying present.

Loving the people
and stuff
you could let bother you
and drive you crazy.

Doing some sweet movement
where learning,
learning,
sensing,
awaring,
nowing,
and discovering
and
funning
are all
part of
the package.

More
stuff, too.

Love
laugh
land
learn

all
good

you
2

Learning by Going "Slow"

Nice essay on going slow
today
at brain plasticity site
aka
Wake Up Feldenkrais
aka
learning
is
it

and
is
that true???

Gumpy Moms and Love Muscles

Jesus said:
(sort of),
'Anyone can love someone who's treating you well,
but what about when they give you a hard time.'

Recently,
got to visit the beautiful Orange County
coast,
of television fame
for superficiality.

Oh, well.
The ocean is beautiful,

the cars are too many and too fast,
some of the people are very bike and outdoors
oriented.

One, who refuses even to take walks,
and still is kicking and growling
at 84
is me Ma.




She's great for practicing love,
since she loves to put down,
and explain how poorly
her little 63 year old boy

is doing,
and various lovelies like that.


And so what?
Anyone can love a Mom who treats you
really well.
This one takes a bit of work,
and the work is all the fun,
because why shouldn't she be just
the way she is,
my wonderful grump of a Ma?

Plus:
she does love her flowers.



A sweet gift she passed
on.

Life is so good,
when I remember where to
live it from.