My Tai Chi teacher used to say I practiced Dead Spider Tai Chi
I was always poised to collapse
I swore I was standing straight and ‘strong’
But when I got tapped even lightly from the side
My leg would collapse into center
Same with my torso or my arms
I can now feel that it originated in the tilt of my hips
And the relationship from hip to ankle to foot to earth
But for years, this stability eluded me
Five minutes with Sue Choi shifted the dynamic forever
I finally found Unbreakable Leg
Practicing her work, I experience the body’s promises
I am supported
I have power without strain
And I am at ease
These aren’t affirmations
They’re the felt sense of a body organized for coherence
What’s funny is I remember being awkward in my body as a kid
And hoping I’d learn how to inhabit it correctly someday
Sue’s work brought that day into being
By aligning reliably into what she calls the neutral body or the body of resource
I can feel the weight of gravity move through my bones
And the more settled I become, the more I can notice and release tension and bracing
Oh-so-much tension and bracing
Although I would’ve assured you I didn’t hold tension
I was so enmeshed in it, I identified it as my ‘self’
Sue’s work also brought into clarity something I’d been dancing around with dozens of somatic teachers
The body of story, my habitual posture made up of accumulated tensions
The residue of a lifetime of bracings, small and large
Compounded into fields that literally restructured my posture
I began to notice that my body took on specific shapes during different emotions
And when I could intentionally organize my body differently
It loosened the weight of my mood
Attention to aligning to and exploring the neutral body
Has helped me reclaim my body’s natural resources
My stories were organizing my posture to a huge degree
Now my design is
And as I get better at this
I notice these little tensions that have run via my subconscious
Just in the background
All the time, perhaps from last week, perhaps from 50 years ago
But now they get the light of attention
And the structure of alignment I can relax into and move from
Coherent Body gave me the reference and knowing I never learned as a kid
How to organize myself to receive the natural support and power of a living being
Counterbalancing so much accumulated bracing
I was trapped in a web of my own tensions
And didn’t know the simple shifts that could release me
Now I do
I wish I’d had this knowledge straight out the gate
So I could’ve been a nimble panther in my Tai Chi and in my life
Without that pesky Dead Spider phase
