Waving Wallpaper and Trembling Hands

In preparation for beginning a new business venture, I have been attending a series of business and personal development seminars. In late January I was in Los Angeles at one of the seminars and quickly found a place to do a T’ai Chi Chih movement or two during our short breaks. As soon as the room would clear, I would move over into a corner of the room that was visibly blocked from the doors, and I would begin to move.

I was just finishing up “Daughter on the Mountaintop” when I heard people returning to their chairs behind me. I closed the movement and turned around to see a woman staring at me with a strange expression on her face. As I returned to my seat she leaned over and asked what on earth had I been doing? I told her that it was a series of T’ai Chi Chih movements, which is a movement meditation that I practice and teach. She then told me that she must have been seeing things, because every time my hands would come up, the wallpaper would wave! I offered what I thought was a very logical and familiar explanation, explaining that it was not unlike the same kind of visual phenomenon that we see on the pavement on a hot day, and that what she was seeing was the wallpaper through the Chi that was flowing out of my hands as I moved. I finished my explanation only to see that she still looked puzzled, so much for my logical and familiar example.

Later that same day we were doing some stretches and deep breathing exercises, and as I brought my arms up I could feel the Chi begin to flow and my hands and fingers began their familiar trembling and fluttering. A woman who was standing behind me gently reached out, and taking my hand, asked me if I was okay and if I needed to sit down and relieve my tremors! This time I decided against offering an explanation but simply assured her that I was indeed okay, and that the “tremors” were only temporary.

Waving wallpaper and trembling hands, all in a day’s movement.