I stepped into the ring, holding my broadsword and feeling butterflies in my stomach. I wanted to do well in my first tournament performance as a black belt.
It was February, 1998 in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and at 45 years old, I had studied different martial arts for 25 years, had been in the internal arts for more than 10 years, and had practiced qigong diligently for more than a decade.
"Just get into the zone," I told myself as I calmed down and prepared to do my broadsword form.
God, there are a lot of people, I thought.
"Settle down," my inner voice said. "Detach. Rise above the pressure."
It was the worst advice I could have given myself.
A few movements into the form, I turned to my right to do a sweeping cut and noticed a young boy was walking across the ring, just a few feet from me.
Within another movement or two, I completely spaced out and forgot where I was in my form. For a flash of a second, I was mentally paralyzed, then I made up some movements, wrapped up the for...
Last year, a student joined our tai chi class who has been involved in the art for decades. He even teaches now, even though he really shouldn't, based on his knowledge of body mechanics.
One night in class we had a discussion of chi, and I explained my views. I said that no one could use chi to make a person move without touching them.
"I can," he said.
"Really? You can make me move without touching me?" I asked.
"Yes, I've done it many times."
"Well, all I can tell you is one, no you haven't, and two, you certainly can't make me move without touching me," I said.
So, with several students watching, he walked up close to me. Very close. His face was inches away from mine, and he held his hands up just a centimeter or two from my face.
Now, the natural human reaction when someone moves so close is to back away, but that's what he expected me to do. Instead, I relaxed and decided that I wasn't going to let the fact that he had violated my space bother me. He kept his hands in fro...
The first time I realized that chi kung (also spelled "Qigong") was having an impact on my life was in 1988, working as the producer of the 6:00 newscast at KMTV.
On one particular day, a wall cloud was passing the station, preparing to drop a tornado. People were running around the newsroom, doing live broadcasts, rolling big studio cameras outside the door so they could show the wall cloud on the air as it passed by -- there was a lot of shouting and screaming.
It was a little after 5 p.m. and I was at my desk, putting the final touches on the rundown and script for the 6:00 news. Suddenly I heard someone laugh. I looked to my right and the sports anchor was sitting at his desk looking at me.
"Doctor Chill," he said. "Everyone's screaming and panicking and you just sit there getting the job done."
I realized that I had been centering myself as I worked. I had become the eye in the center of the storm. The chi kung I began studying under Sifu Phillip Starr at the Omaha YiLi Chuan ...
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