Home is a feeling

When I think about home, I think about belonging. I think about a sense of stability, a groundedness. I think of that old phrase "Home is where the heart is". Home is a feeling.

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Many of us have felt lost in our lives. I know I have. I can't stress enough how painful it can be to feel completely lost - like there's nowhere you belong. If you've ever felt this way, you know. This is where I was when I got into studying Wujifa.

As a practiced the simple exercises like Zhan Zhuang (standing meditation) I began to feel my body more and more. I began to feel more and more at home in myself.

Everyone deserves to feel like they belong in their own skin, in their own body. It's a home that never leaves - it's always there for you if you choose to claim it.

So at class, we were talking about ways to feel even more at home, to be at home in push-hands. It was clear that the more I felt the principles of Wujifa (Relax, Balance, Structure, Connection, etc.) the more "at home" I was in the practice, and the more sturdy and grounded my home was. There was also the idea of the "mobile home" as a metaphor for the Wujifa practitioner's body. This means that you don't have to stay stuck in one place. Home is a feeling, and you can move and adjust to maintain that feeling. This can also mean sinking your home into the ground more so that it can maintain itself in response to external pressures.

Home is where the heart is, and my heart is in my body in a very literal sense. Thanks in an large part to Wujifa, now my heart is with my body in a much deeper way as well. It's there in the feeling of connection I have to my body as a living organism. It's there in the love that I feel for myself as a person. It's there in the grounded structure that keeps me in alignment even when other pressures start to come in. It's good to be home.

Why it's better not to know.

What a great class this Sunday at The School of Cultivation and Practice! Such great sharing with some wonderful friends as we all found ourselves in the moment. I am so thankful for all of my brothers and the insights we were finding together.

A while back we were working on the phrase "I... don't understand... yet... I'm open" Which is kind of a cool non-mantra mantra which can be interpreted and expressed many different ways.

This Sunday, as we were finding ourselves in the moment, the idea of "I know" came up with its buddy "I don't know" and this found it's way (as things often do at the School) into a push-hands demonstration. Now, at the school we talk about the difference between "brace" and "internal strength" a lot. Now, the brace idea is basically locking your body into the strongest possible linear structure in opposition to a force, whereas true internal strength has much more freedom and flexibility inherent in it. Brace is strong, but tends toward rigidity.

So we're pushing hands a bit, and my partner is showing what happens when "I know" starts to creep in. As soon as you commit rigidly to one way of doing something, as soon as you say "I know" and stop paying attention, you get stuck. This is when brace shows up. Saying "I know" locks you in. It's "dead post".

Now contrast this with the statement "I don't know" in the sense of "I don't understand yet I'm open" and you get more of a process going on that's connected to the moment. Relating in this way leads to a more internal push hands expression.

Wujifa is all about connection - how are you connecting? We play with refining our connections so that we will experience unity - both in our bodies and in our lives.