| Interview
Be Still as a Mountain
– interviewed by Instructor Lis
In a country overseas where Amy grew up, the most
dominant feature of the local landscape was a mountain. This majestic
shape loomed over her town, always there while she played or rode to
school. She would look up at it and admire its solidity and calm
permanence and think, “I would like to be like that.”
Years later, after she’d married and moved to Australia, this mountain
would feature again in her art, a subject she studied at tertiary level.
Expressing her innermost feelings through the creative process was very
important to her at that time in her life. Australian culture was
unfamiliar and she didn’t speak English at first. The mountain
represented stability.
Through her own artistic creations, her intention was to evoke an
atmosphere of serenity, inspired by memories of the mountain. Now, she
is learning to apply the same concept to her mind, body and spirit
through her Tai Chi experience – “serenity in motion”.
 When she read, in her Tai Chi manual (“Reflections Along the Tai Chi
Pathway” by Brett Wagland), the words “be still as a mountain”, the
connection was immediate. All her life, that mountain had hovered in
her consciousness. Here it was appearing again, as part of the Tai Chi
way. Amy was completely and utterly absorbed by the simplicity and the
profoundness of the ideas in the manual. Although not a religious
person, she describes it as her bible.
One of her failings, Amy says, is her tendency to over commit herself to
whatever activity she is undertaking. She throws herself in
wholeheartedly and creates stress where none need be. While going
through a difficult period in her personal life (mid 2003) and suffering
from headaches, breathing trouble, back ache and neck pain, she visited
the doctor and physio many times, but all to no avail. Amy knew the
situation was affecting her both physically and emotionally. She
suffered and so did those around her.
She came to Tai Chi classes quite by chance on the recommendation of a
GP - not her own doctor but a locum filling in for a day or two. This
new doctor asked her sternly, “What have you been doing to yourself?”
Initially disconcerted by his angry manner, Amy was later impressed by
the way he diagnosed her physical ailments — the pain, he stated, came
not just from the injuries sustained in a cycling accident but also from
acute stress and stiffness in the joints and muscles. He told her the
regular swimming she did wasn’t good enough; she needed weight bearing
exercise and also some form of relaxation. Apart from Tai Chi, he
suggested ballroom dancing or rowing. Having neither a dancing partner
nor a boat, Amy chose Tai Chi, despite having the vague idea it was
exercise only for old people. In her early fifties, she quite rightly
doesn’t consider herself old!
Reading the manual after
that first class brought more things into focus for her, things she’d
never thought about before — the connection between mind and body, the
balancing aspects, the holistic approach, the true meaning of relaxation
as opposed to simply lazing about. Her knees were sore at first but
instructor Chris suggested she not sit so low in her movements. She
realised she would need to curb her tendency to strive too hard and
allow her body to find its own way, naturally.
After ten months of diligent Hun Yuan Tai Chi practice, Amy reports her
friends have commented on the change in her.
She is calmer,
happier and not so worried all the time. She realises the changes have
come from her and that the external issues are still the same. It’s how
she deals with them now that has improved. One of her main goals was to
develop herself, not just make physical improvements to her stiff joints
and alleviate back pain but to learn to cope and thus help those close
to her cope as well. It seems she is making those changes. Everyday
she feels better. “Practising,” she says, “is like cleansing my body,
ridding it of toxins.”
Amy likes the constant learning process and enjoys the interaction with
other like-minded people in the classes, regardless of age, situation or
ability. “It’s individual, but still a group.”
Of the many good aspects of Tai Chi, one of the best things is that Amy
will be able to keep practising and learning for the rest of her life.
She described the discovery of Tai Chi as an opening up of a new path,
a broadening of her vision at a time in her life when she thought the
opposite was occurring, that her opportunities were narrowing and
becoming fewer.
Amy is looking forward to the rest of her Tai Chi journey and perhaps
eventually achieving the calmness and serenity of her mountain.
(This is an actual
interview, but the name
has
been changed for reasons of
privacy.)
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