Tai Chi Grounding.

It seems that one major collision between Tai Chi and Dance is the grounding. Tai Chi is almost all solidly on the heel, ready to absorb and redirect force into the ground.

My basic nature does not involve spending my time up on my toes floating above the floor.

My particular fascination right now is in vibrations. When I'm in the zone, I've found that I can move in ways that I never imagined, and the feeling is pretty incredible. Suddenly some of the things that I heard about internal circling from a particular (somewhat crazy) tai chi teacher, years ago, starts to make sense. When my legs are moving in tiny little circles at a rate that I absolutely can't consciously control (and I'm pretty sure are roughly in sync with a high multiple of the beat), I don't know... it's mind-blowing. Yeah, strange. You have to be there, I think.

Effortless movement...

A couple weeks ago, a woman commented on the amount of Energy I have.

I realized today, that upper body motion is almost effortless. I can do it for a very long time without running out of energy. I can go fast or slow, of course, depending on what I need at the time, but still, it feels essentially effortless.

Nearly everything is coming from my legs and hips, the arms and body are essentially "whipping" around.

Now, it's when I do leg movement is when I crap out very quickly. Running man practice kills me.

Question, what do the belly dance teachers say about back / spine safety when rolling up and down your spine.

I'm afraid that I might hurt myself. I think I've figured out how to send a sin wave down my spine, but after I do I tend to have a dull pain / sensation along my spine that I DO NOT like. I figure I'm going to have to take that one VERY slow, but am curious what your input might be.

Trying to Dance for the first time.

I had been mulling over the idea of taking my Tai Chi to the dancefloor for a few weeks before I actually tried it.

My first attempt failed. I had no comfort or confidence, and didn't "feel" it.

The second attempt failed, too. I wasn't in the right frame of mind.

The third attempt blew my mind.

Basically, the key that I found was in the timing (duh!). For the most part I'm not actually doing Tai Chi. There are times when I need inspiration and I'll break into Cloudhands, or other specific movements, but what I've found to be most critical are the most basic concepts, particularly silk reeling, and the flow of energy through the legs and hips, up to the upper body.

Since Tai Chi has trained me to use my hips for control, I find that a very large part of finding a rhythm comes simply from shifting the hips, and thus shifting the motion of the entire upper body.

Studying definitions of various types of dance, I find that "popping and locking" describes a significant part of the final flavor of the movement.

On timing, I've been going out of my way to discover how to use variations on the beat in order to make the result more interesting and deep. More on timing later...

At some point Dance becomes more than just bouncing around to music, it becomes the challenge of complete body-control. This is synergistic with the various goals of Tai Chi or Yoga. It also becomes entertainment.

SO MUCH TO PRACTICE!

I know nothing of dancing...

This is a disclaimer.

I've bounced around on various dancefloors, done my share of grinding with ladies, blah blah, but have never really explored it as a concept until about a month ago.

So, I'm still in just the basic process of learning terminology, and trying to understand what differentiates one form from another. So, readers, please be patient with me if I make errors in terminology, or fact. Do feel free to correct me, though.