I’ve mentioned before my old high school science teacher who was fond of saying, “If you can’t explain it, then you don’t know it.” There is a lot about Tai Chi I can’t explain but feel that I know. There are days when it just feels right. And of course, many days when it doesn’t. But too much thinking can be a dangerous thing:

A centipede was happy quite,
Until a toad in fun
To Said, "Pray, which leg comes after which?"
This raised her mind to such a pitch,
She lay distracted in the ditch
Considering how to run.
-- Anonymous

Although there is nothing Chinese about that poem, I first came across it in Alan Watt’s book, The Way of Zen.  It seems appropriate to the study of Tai Chi Cuan.

My new toy is a collapsible (extendable) sword. Hmmm, that sounds like the glass half full/empty syndrome. The sword does kind of look like a toy but is pretty well made from hollow stainless steel sections that telescope like a nested Russian doll down to a convenient eight or nine inches. It has solved my self-conscious phobia about carrying my wooden sword in its case into the health center. One guy in the locker room asked me if I had brought my pool cue with me. It’s heavier than my wooden sword but lighter than my steel one and seems just about right for practice. Plus, it’s fun to flick it open like a light saber.

Other toys are ordered. I have a pair of rave gloves, complete with lighted finger tips, in the mail as well as two extra LED lights that can be attached to my shoes (I hope). I keep visualizing my fingers being able to leave a trail of light (visible Chi?) as I practice. It has made me quite conscious of the path my hands follow during the form and this may be bad or good, who knows.  Soon I will experiment with time exposures and hopefully have something interesting to post on this blog.

Meanwhile, I’m trying not to be like the centipede and just let it happen. Tai Chi is supposed to be good for meditation if you can empty your mind. These days, that’s pretty difficult.

Tai Chi Virtual Volumes

Norman McClaren --- Pas De Deax

In 1967, Norman McClaren, a Canadian animator and filmmaker, directed a film called Pas De Deax in which dancers were optically overprinted with progressive frames creating a "virtual volume." This technique had been done in still photography as early as 1882 by E’tienne-Jules Marey using a special camera he developed which recorded successive high-speed photos overlapped on one plate.

Marey Chromophotographs

His images were to influence many 20th century artists including Marcel Duchamp, who produced his famous Nude Descending a Staircase in 1911, and Giacomo Balla who painted Dynamics of a Dog on a Leash in 1912.

Duchamp --- Nude Descending a Staircase

Balla -- Dog on a Leash

The virtual volume created by overlapping stages of movement becomes a unique form illuminating time and space. A more contemporary version of this technique can be found in the use of motion capture suits to record three-dimensional forms in motion for computer games and motion pictures featuring CG characters.

motion capture suit and digital rendering

Motion capture trace of dancer Gretchen Schiller, AMUC project by David Green, Culture Lab, Newcastle University.

Back in the day, when I taught film and animation, I used to show Norman McClaren’s Pas De Deax in class. I always felt it provided an insight into the process of film animation and the understanding of motion as a form that could be visualized. Lately, as I’ve practiced Tai Chi in the mirrored room at the Health Center, I’ve imagined points of light at the tips of my fingers and toes and watched these imaginary virtual volumes drawn in the air. I think of using a light saber for sword practice, darkening the room and opening the shutter on my old Heiland Pentax 35mm camera to record the hidden form inside The Form. Perhaps I will eventually do this. Until I can put together a pair of black gloves laced with LEDS and a room I can plunge into darkness (or perhaps travel back to New Mexico for the solid blackness of that night) I will have to be satisfied with imaginary virtual volumes (if I can be forgiven for the oxymoron).

Picasso --- Light Drawing

After I posted this I googled "LED glove" and lo and behold, they make stuff like that the people use at Raves (not that I even know what that is). I think I have to get a pair!