“How do you go from your tai chi or yoga practice out to the rest of life, and have it all stay with you? How do you go from moving with ease, to living with ease?”

A friend of mine brought it up this morning. It’s a good question, that I haven’t always had a good answer for these last decades. I’ll share from our talk below, I hope you’ll find something in here that helps.

There’s something about tai chi that I really love. And I know, many of you have heard me say this many times. But this is a big one and not not just for me, it’s come up again and again, especially now that we’re in our fourth year of the tai chi training. And I think it might be the key to crossing that bridge, from something that’s wonderful, powerful, and enabling in the tai chi or yoga room, to something that’s wonderful, powerful, and enabling in every room.

These practices are portable.

This means I don’t need special practice time, or a special place or equipment to practice. They’re simple, they don’t take a lot of time – 30 seconds to a couple of minutes – and I can do them in the grocery store, while I’m driving, playing with Daisy, or walking to the post office.

I think this means something for crossing that bridge my friend brought up this morning, between moving with ease, and living with ease. And it’s not something that came easily for me. I know in my first ten years of practicing yoga, what I was doing was for the yoga – it was good in that room. But I wasn’t sure about what it was doing outside that special place, except maybe when I was comparing notes with my yoga friends.

Then somewhere along the way, something my old tai chi teacher kept telling me, it started to make more sense. He would say, “Mike, if what you do out there is different from what we’re doing in here, then what you’re doing isn’t tai chi. It’s maybe a tai-chi-like dance. But it’s not tai chi.”

He said this to me at different times for decades. But I noticed during my earlier yoga years, he was saying it more. Mostly I thought he was just being a little too critical. But at some point, like pretty much everything he ever said, it clicked for me.

Doing all this practice wasn’t for being good at tai chi. Or with yoga, for being good at yoga. It was for everything else. And then, to make it real for everything else, I needed to be practicing it also Everywhere Else. My teacher wasn’t just being tough on me. He was telling me something that he knew I would need when I got older, and these things started to matter more.

Which is why these practices being portable has become so helpful, with everything. And why it’s something we talk about and share together so much in our tai chi program now. I’ve seen this in me, my friends, and all of us now, so much. If I only practice this during my tai chi time, or my yoga time, it’s really hard to bring it into the rest of life, to have it be something practical, real, and helpful, everywhere. That doesn’t just happen automatically. It turns out that to get there, I need also to do these practices in all the places, everywhere.

The practices are portable because they’re simple enough to carry with me. And they work because life keeps reminding me, and we keep supporting each other, to carry them along.

I hope this helps a bit for right now, and really wonderful if we get to share in all this together someplace soon. It’s something else I’ve found these last many years. There’s so much help here, in being together.

If you’d like to join in person, this is always magical, and we always have more times in more places coming up. Our next is a tai chi weekend in Berlin, I’ll share that link with you here . . .

Tai Chi and Qigong Weekend, February in Berlin

And if you’re looking for online, we have a “tai chi for yoga teachers” course, as well as a longer 200 hour yoga program, you might really love right now. Both include a whole year of live Zoom sessions, so we have lots of chances to see each other and share together. I’ll copy a couple more links below, and always if you need help with joining, that’s easy, just let me know.

Tai Chi for Yoga Teachers (and practicers) – Online, begin any time

200+Hour Yoga Teacher Training – Online, begin any time

Thank you so much everybody for being and sharing here, I hope you have a really good weekend heading your way now, hope also Tara and I get to see you someplace soon!

Mike