Shoulder Rolls

Heh. I'm not even going to try to edit this, so grin and bare it:

Tai Chi was one of the best classes I've ever taken at Butler. My professor, Dr. Heinz, taught me far more than just a ten minute form. I learned meditation techniques and invaluable stretches. I learned to read my body, to recognize and then release tension in an instant. By mid semester I knew what it was to relax, to be able to feel the weight of gravity in every movement. He gave amazing advice about balance in life, and the value of finding and holding on to a teacher who speaks truth.

This all sounds just terribly banal in the retelling. But in its context all of it resonated with me in a dozen different ways. I've never learned so much about daily life and living, the world and myself as I did in that class, and by end of it I hung on every word. And every once and a while -- like say, now -- I think back on a story he told or some small piece of advice he offered. For instance, the last words he left us with:

If you take one thing from this class, if you hold on to nothing else, I want you to leave understanding this. It will keep you in good stead throughout your life:I cannot stress enough the importance of shoulder rolls.

I laughed. Hard. And then thought no more of it.

...As I was doing my shoulder rolls this morning, I thought twice. I thought about my Medieval England class last semseter. Some of you may recall the saga of last November, which culminated in my receiving an "Incomplete" in that class.

I didn't get all I could have from Medieval England. Dr. Swanson makes history live. He teaches characters and motivations and cultures. He makes men 800 years dead three dimentional. When Scott tells you that William Marshall, or whoever, was an asshole (as he often does), you believe him. By the end of it, I should have known each king, their accomplishments, their failures, their dispositions, their favorite color and how many bastard sons they had.

Did I? For any number of reasons, no. Instead I got myself in pickle. But from that situation, I learned to trust my instincts and know my limits. I learned what, exactly, my limits are. I didn't leave class the last day with a new, enlightened understanding of history, as I could have. I left with shoulder rolls.

That makes sense? Too bad. :)