As I come up on a year on my journey of learning the short form of Tai Chi, I’m always trying to learn how to deepen my practice.

Tai Chi is a form of meditative martial arts focused on grounding oneself. When I first started doing it, I fell into the same trap most beginners do, wanting to look “pretty” and cool to show off the sequence I had learned so far. However, in practicing Tai Chi, I’ve learned it’s not about looking cool, but about centering and finding your energy-your chi. In Tai Chi as a Path of Wisdom, author Linda Myoki Lehrhaupt shares an amusing story about the difference between looking “pretty” and the feeling of chi.

Philosophical Engineering

During one of her classes, Lehrhaupt’s teacher used a vivid analogy to explain the importance of grounding oneself. “When you do standing meditation this week, you stand like a baby with a big diaper. Diaper is full of shit…” A student asks why he couldn’t picture himself instead as a tree reaching out to the sky as the image of a diaper full of shit is distasteful. The instructor replied, “That’s your problem. You’re always reaching up, but you’re not connected to the ground. When your pants are full of shit, that keeps you down. Then you understand: not pretty, just chi!”