My tai chi instructor tells us to “move like water.” The human body is more than 50% water, and he wants us to feel that as we step. Shift your weight to your left foot until the right foot feels light. Move your right foot one step, and pour the water into your right leg, allowing your left leg to get light. Now move your left leg and pour the water back into it. This is tai chi walking. Us sloshing our way across the community center feeling the liquid shifting within.
One of my classmates and I were casually celebrating our sense of accomplishment at finally mastering our first tai chi set (a full sequence of 24 moves), something that took months of weekly practice to learn. She said, “Now I have to learn not to rush through it.” Yes. That’s the key to tai chi; move like water. Tai chi invites us to slow down so that you can feel your body, inside and out, the water moving within, the chi/lifeforce energy moving through and around. It’s a meditative movement practice that trains you to attend to yourself in the moment and guides you toward balance and stability in your body-mind-spirit.
This morning I tucked a walk in between my visit to the flu/covid shot clinic and my first meeting of the day. The closest regional park to the clinic is Miller-Knox Shoreline in Richmond CA. I kind of knew I was headed to the water but didn’t really take it in until I got out of the car and heard the swish swish of the lapping waves. Heart lifting just from the sound, I headed in that direction. This was meant to be a move-your-ass walk, time to work out the kinks in my hips, lubricate the joints, and get some heart-healthy movement going.
When I came ‘round the bend to where the rocks go down to the water, a simple rock stack caught my eye, and I found myself compelled to take a closer look.
Just like that my heart-healthy walk started to shift into a soul-healthy walk, as I began to really take in the water all around me. What does it mean to “move like water”? I’ve been noodling on this question since I first heard my teacher say it aloud last winter. How can I “move like water” not only in my tai chi practice but in my life?
Today the water on the San Pablo Bay (the north end of the SF Bay) was gentle, softly pulsing along the rocks, a heartbeat at rest. But water can move in so many different ways. This fall and into winter, there’s a Kelvin wave making its way up the coast of the Western US. It’s a warm water surge thousands of miles wide that’s been moving across the Pacific from near Indonesia. Having encountered land at the north end of South America, it shifted direction and will be moving up along the coast from now until February. Along the way it will raise sea levels by 6-12 inches – that’s how much water there is in this one “wave”. Who knew water could move that way, in such a large mass, so far, with so much power and restraint?
This week, here in the Bay Area, the combination of Tropical Storm Rachel to the south, the Kelvin wave, and king tides has led to coastal flood advisories. When the sea gets like this we have more sneaker waves and rip currents, because water can also move like a hunter, stalking you and pouncing, pulling you out and under.
Water seeps and mists and drips, gently, persistently, sometimes annoyingly. Water thunders and destroys like a tsunami or thunders generatively like Niagara Falls (which produces 2.6 million kilowatts of hydro-electric power every second). Which water movement am I mirroring today?
There is a prayer in the Nissim B’chol Yom/Miracles of Daily Life, a series of morning gratitudes, that blesses God “who makes the earth firm upon the waters.” When I was navigating the high and stormy waters of divorced, blended-family, parenting of too many teens, I often imagined the tiny pinprick of rock I was standing on with torrents of raging water all around. Frequently during that season, I wished for a surfboard (and the necessary skills!), knowing that what I really needed was to learn to ride the waves.
This week a tempest-tossed reiki client asked me to linger over her root chakra (at the base of the torso). “It feels really strong there,” she whispered. “What do you feel?” “Like when you toss a stone into water, and it ripples out in every direction.” Yes. Energy moving like water.
“Wave hands like clouds.” “Repulse monkey.” “Leisurely tying coat.” My tai chi teacher mostly calls out cryptic names showing us how to find these movements in our bodies. In between he offers sparsely dropped pearls of wisdom about easing our inflamed minds and moving like water. Together we are cultivating a new way of being in ourselves, getting to know, maybe to tame, maybe to roll with, definitely to attune to our own energies, the water within.
This morning’s walk slowed down further, releasing all urgency and settling into a soul-centered pace. I watched the slow progress of working boats. I marveled at the way nature has reclaimed this sliver of coastline where dune grasses grow over rusted railway tracks leading to an abandoned ferry terminal, even as the oil tankers load and unload at the nearby refinery. I quietly stalked the great egret who was grooming atop a small scruffy tree. Pausing to take in the water once more before turning to the requirements of my day, I watched a fly get stuck in a spider’s web and the spider race out to roll it up. That lingering gave me time to notice the sea lion on its own leisurely “stroll” just off shore.
I don’t know that I was moving like water, but I was definitely moving in concert with it, inside and outside. Or maybe I was simply using this sacred half-hour to exercise the restraint of tai chi, or the Kelvin wave, a slow, powerful movement that allows me to feel the ripples all around.