"As Sure As... Yet For You It Doesn't Exist"

“As sure as water runs down hill” Anonymous

I had a new student in class last night. I’m not really sure how old she is and the best I can do is to place her somewhere between 50 and 60. She’s in incredibly good shape and thinks she has very limited coordination. She even tried to prove it to me by confusing herself a couple of times.

I’ve never met anyone who could do tai chi well right out of the gate. I was pretty bad myself when I started, and I think of myself as being pretty coordinated. I taught her a couple of moves and broke them down to their individual parts; she actually did them quite well. I think she is more coordinated than most people but for some reason she honestly believes she isn’t.

Does this describe you? I think it describes each of us to some degree. When we really believe something all we look for are things that confirm our beliefs. Like this woman who thinks she’s uncoordinated, so she completely ignored the things she did very well. We ignore whatever doesn’t fit our beliefs. It’s absolutely amazing when you actually see someone do this so obviously.

It was a bit like watching a hypnotist’s show. You know the kind of show where people are given suggestions to do the most outlandish things and also to think it’s perfectly normal. Like to forget the number 4: “For you the number 4 does not exist and when counting it simply does not factor into your consciousness.” Then the hypnotist counts 5 chairs on the stage and the person agrees, but when they count they get 6. Yet they can’t figure out why.

What are you good at? What are you missing?

Bye for now,

John

P.S. I found this beautiful waterfall picture on Flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/emmedibi/244716376/

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