Personal View on Taijiquan

I never really wanted to do Taijiquan. Not what I had seen until in the year 2000, I met Master Jan Silberstorff. Master Silberstorff is the head instructor of World Chen Tai Ji Association Germany.

I started learning the single hand Reeling Silk exercise that fascinated me because of the external simplicity and the inner complexity. It seemed that you could find the whole universe in that exercise. I started adding the Standing Pole exercise (Zhan Zhuang) to improve my stance. For my Southern Shaolin Kung Fu handforms and especially for the full contact partner exercises and fighting it challenged my physical power.

As the only woman in the group of male training partners I was physically weaker in size, weight and muscular strength. So I started struggling with myself in the Standing Pole (Zhan Zhuang) meditative exercise.

The external physical fight became less important and I started confronting myself and my inner boundaries and dealing with my blockages in a new intense way.

There were so many years fighting in hard physical training and Full Contact Tournaments of Kung Fu, Karate and Jiu Jitsu.

Now I realized that I was mainly fighting with myself.

Of course the ego is an important part in that because, “Winning is great fun”.

I started being more gentle with myself, therefore was able to be gentler with others.

Polarizing is getting harder to do. “This is good or that is bad.” Nothing is really just black or white any more. I see all the many aspects in someone and/ or in something.

My own boundaries are dissolving. The more I get rooted the clearer my thinking gets.

I am encouraged to choose an authentic path in life, the right way to go, that I feel fully responsible for. It isn’t easier at all. But the external and the internal are blending to become one.

Like in the handform the intangible energy is expressed in the tangible body movement.

I have the possibility to see clearly who I am. Everything is moving and changing continously, as I am progressing with my daily Taiji and meditation practice. That makes me feel lucky and happy. Because I am able to share it with all the people in my life, especially with my students.