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Swimming Tai Chi Spermatozoa Style

"...very majestic, slow and regular..."

“… very majestic, slow and regular,…”

Google [Microswimmers make a splash: Tiny travelers take on a viscous world] for research that describes movements of living things in the microscopic world as, “… very majestic, slow and regular…” That parallels the movement sought in Tai Chi. Google [Tai Chi – centertao]

Consider this quote from the research. “Motion at low Reynolds number is very majestic, slow and regular,” the late physicist E.M. Purcell said in a famous 1976 lecture on the physics of micro-organisms, “If you are at very low Reynolds number, what you are doing… is entirely determined by the forces that are exerted on you at that moment, and by nothing in the past.”

Or the future I’d add! This describes the essence of what I look for in doing Tai Chi. Picturing myself as a microorganism swimming in air can point me in the right direction. This is not far off the mark either. When I feel myself against the backdrop of eternity, it is easier to feel microscopic and vacant like a valley, as chapter 15 describes it.

 

Jul 18, 2009 by Carl Abbott
Filed Under: Observations Tagged With: tai chi

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