rtw365

Feeling the Energy and Peeing Gravel

Three days ago I went running for the first time since my surgery. Just 15 minutes, but it felt nice to do that. Then yesterday, I ran for 20 minutes. Within an hour after that, I'd peed out three small pieces of my broken up kidney stone. Wow was that nice! So today I ran for a bit more than 30 minutes, but all I got for it was the reddest urine I've ever seen. Still, felt wonderful to be out for a run at dawn and then to Chi Kung class before the sun is over the trees.

One of the really wonderful things about being "stuck" in Pune is that I've found an amazing Tai Chi and Chi Kung instructor. He's been studying for the last 30 years all over the world, and it really shows. Though I've felt the movement of energy before, it was always vague compared to this. In his classes I've felt it intensely and clearly. He breaks things down to the smallest details, taking three weeks to go through 24 move Yang short style. He says that it has been the last 20 years here that have really made the energy work part of it come together for him, that it is a part that the Chinese don't teach verbally and really don't even have a vocabulary for. For me, I think it is the main thing that has ever been attractive to me about martial arts, but it is missing from most classes (and most people's practice -- not that there is anything wrong with it as a purely physical or physical and mental exercise).

Funny, I had hoped to do Tai Chi in Thailand with Master Chia after doing Vipasana and then making my way via Vietnam to Thailand. Seems like I was meant to do a different order in different places.

I've also made some wonderful friends. Hanging out a lot with four women visiting from Iran (two sisters, one of their best friens and their mother) and a couple of their Indian friends (one self-described hippy and the other who has a construction business). It's been eye-opening to learn about life and politics in Tehran (I was shocked at how different they are from Arab countries I've visited, and it took a while just to get over the idea of four women from Iran traveling on their own). It's been interesting to see how middle to upper-class Indians live (with maids, cooks, drivers and etc.). Really, there isn't much middle class here, it seems, you're either really poor or you've got a strange mix of amazing luxuries combined with the fact that no amount of money will buy you good service, clean air, quiet, or other things that are foreign to Indian cities.

Now about that Tehran connection, I wonder if I'll have problems with Homeland Security when they read that I've befriended nationals of our next enemy...

posted by Dale L. Larson @ 8:43 PM