Contextual vs Energetic Visualisation
Sometimes blog ideas appear and you can barely type fast enough to draw the idea out of the ether, and other times you have to grind it out. We are firm believers that ideas exist independently and present themselves to you, if you don’t make it manifest it will move on. Most people have an anecdote about a book or invention idea they have had and not acted on before seeing somebody else produce it.
Visualisation gets a bad rap within meditative circles. What people are generally referring to is one of two things; either your practice becoming an operation of the imagination with no real benefits (or worse creating mental instability), or using visualisation to force energy through the orbits resulting in chi deviation. We prefer doing the work with the limbs in the auric zone around the body as the primary trigger for internal change.
We have found visualisation to be a powerful tool when used correctly. For example, if you are working on lifting the crown and opening the spine you could force up your crown but this immediately creates tension. Alternatively you could use the classical visualisation of being suspended by a golden thread (or a modernised visualisation of your own) and not force your body in to any shape, just do the visualisation and let the physical chips fall where they may. This gentle approach is not the only way but is enjoyable for the practitioner and yields lovely results.
The other facet of visualisation is the broader context in which you are training. Many people come to Tai Chi because of a pop culture inspiration, for example they are a huge Star Wars fan and decided Tai Chi would be the closest analogy for Jedi training which is a good assumption. Or perhaps there is real world inspiration like seeing a video of a stunning sword performance from a Wudang Mountain wushu school. We lean in to both of these scenarios, pop culture inspirations are magical and positive for training, and training sword from day 1 is an excellent catalyst for skill and cultivation.
Train well!