Stepping Into Something New.
There is always something exciting about doing something for the first time – and something a little terrifying as well .. the yin and yang.
You can spend weeks thinking about a project, planning, refining and convincing yourself that you’re almost ready – but at some point realise, you actually have to stop thinking about it, and actually share it with the world.
This is a lesson that I am yet to really conquer. I am great at the dreaming and researching, putting all my ‘ducks in a row’ .. but am sadly slower at getting it out!
And this lesson arrived again with The Way of Spring.
I had dreamed of this 5-week exploration of qigong and meditation as being my first step into sharing what has, until now, been my own practice at home. The seasonal theme of my meditation work has always been through the lens of the seasons, and as I continue with my Qigong Teacher Training, I could see and feel that the practice that I had cultivated for myself – might be coming to that point of sharing with others.
I had thought about it – a lot.
I wanted these five weeks to inspire participants in discovering their own enjoyment and benefits from qigong, rather than simply being taught a series of exercises. So, I kept putting on my beginners’ mind and asking myself: what would feel welcoming? What might be confusing? How could I introduce some of the traditional wisdom without making it feel like a history lesson? And, most importantly, how could I help people experience it for themselves?
There is a word for this real time experience – ‘interception’ – our ability to sense what is happening inside our body in real time. Our breath, heartbeat, warmth, tension, relaxation, movement and stillness – all the subtle sensations we can so easily miss when we are busy getting on with life. Qigong gives us an opportunity to develop this awareness because we are moving slowly enough to notice. Rather than worrying about whether we are doing the movement ‘right’ .. I want to encourage curiosity: What am I feeling? What changes when I soften my shoulders? What happens to my breath?
This is very much the approach I have always held with meditation – less about achieving a particular state and more about learning to notice and develop a relationship with our own experience. With qigong, we get to explore that same awareness while the body is moving.
Finding my own Spring
Before I started writing my lesson plans, I was in Bali, and I think that time influenced The Way of Spring more than I realised at first. Spending so much time outdoors in the tropical sunlight, I felt myself unfurling a little – mind, body and spirit – and settled into my own practice in a very quiet and unhurried way.
At some point, the exercises stopped feeling like something I was trying to remember and became movement. My body found a rhythm, my breath joined in, and my mind seemed quite happy to step aside for a while.
I really loved that. I would love to bottle ‘that’.
When I came home, I modified some of the exercises to find what felt like the simplest and most restful doorway into qigong for someone new to the practice. I kept coming back to wu wei, the Daoist idea of effortless action – doing with less, rather than constantly pushing or striving. That felt like the perfect quality to bring into these classes.
And then I remembered I had to bring it all online … like, how would that work!
This was a important step, that I had really failed to consider: how to actually teach movement from my little home practice space!
For years I have recorded and shared meditation from here, and the set-up works beautifully when I am sitting down. I had somehow transferred that assumption straight across to qigong without really testing it.
It was only the day before my first class that I discovered my lovely meditation set-up was not going to work particularly well for a standing and moving practice. The camera angle was wrong, I needed a proper microphone and suddenly my carefully prepared lesson plans were accompanied by an urgent technology project – and technology is definitely not my master skill.
Thank goodness for AI. I/we worked through what might be needed, and I headed to my local store with a rather unusual shopping list, where a lovely young assistant helped me work it all out. Once home, I moved things around, tested everything again, and that was really it. Which, perhaps is the definition of ready.
Eight lovely students joined me online for the very first Way of Spring class. I was so thrilled and once we began, all the planning and worrying about whether I had got it right seemed to fall away. We moved, breathed, explored and I had the lovely experience of watching people begin to discover the practice for themselves.
I also received some truly lovely feedback the next day … and a few things to fix before next week with my Zoom set-up. But, that’s all part of learning something new. You really only learn by doing – not sitting at my desk thinking about them.
And perhaps that is the bigger lesson in all of this for me.
I could have waited until I felt completely ready. I could have done another course, learnt a few more exercises and spent another six months refining the program. But at some point, you have to step across that line and be willing to be a beginner at something – even when you’ve been teaching something else for many years.
I have to be willing to learn in public a little bit, and trust that what resonates for me, combined with all that I am still lerning, might be enough to inspire someone to get started.
I am really looking forward to the next four weeks with this lovely group, and to exploring this beautiful meeting place between movement, breath, awareness and stillness.
And, I am allowing myself to enjoy this first step.
A little bit nervous, a little bit proud, very grateful … and very happy that I finally decided to just do it.