More Tai Chi ramblings

September 7th, 2003 at 12:00am

Day 7. Has it been a week already? The time goes fast when you’re busy learning Tai Chi. Course is going well. I am definitely learning a lot. So far we’ve learned the clockwise and counter-clockwise sequence of postures. I’m guessing one direction is taking about 15 minutes or so. And we are also doing meditations in the morning and afternoon, and learning how to breathe and incorporate relaxing the body with the breath and stuff like that into the meditation. We’ve done sitting, standing, and walking forms of meditation. In addition to that we’ve been learning about the Tao and the principals of Tai Chi Chuan to help us understand the purpose of each posture and to incorporate the mind into the movements. Yesterday we watched some kung fu movie that uses Tai Chi in the fighting sequences so we were able to see the martial arts application.

It’s enough to keep me busy that’s for sure. One main distraction for me during the past few days though has been this horrible rash that has come back to haunt me once again. It’s a rash that started while I was cycling in Australia, and for some reason, got worse and worse after I finished riding. The whole time I was in Sydney I suffered from it, and at times it was literally covering my entire body from head to toe. The only thing that seemed to help was calamine lotion, and so I started a ritual of applying it several times a day just to find some sanity from the burning and itching sensation. I didn’t want to do anything, go anywhere, or see anyone. I can’t even begin to describe the frustration. I tried everything, including changing my diet, taking more vitamins, and doing a liver cleanse. The rash just grew and grew. After about 2 weeks of calamine dosing, I started to see a difference and the skin started to clear. But even on the plane ride from Sydney to Bangkok, I was going into the airplane toilet to calamine-up! Then, when I got to Bangkok, the rash cleared. 7 days of clear skin!

But on Day 2 of this course, I ate some rambutan (a type of fruit), and that seemed to kick off the rash again. Holy Frustration! I am so lucky to be here though where they have an in-house Chinese doctor, Dr. Wong, who has been giving me herbs and treating me with acupuncture daily for the last 4 days. At first the rash got WORSE and my eyes were so swollen and puffy I could hardly see. But after the needles today, I started to feel better, and I hope this is the turning point. He said I have too much heat inside my body and that it needs to come out. So he’s targeted the points for my blood, liver, gall bladder, and large intestines in an effort to bring ‘Chi’ to those organs. If this actually works, I’ll be sold on acupuncture for life.

Shoulder Strike

Entry Filed under: Chiang Mai,North,Thailand