Become Slightly Less Shit
I want to move better, and the plan is Tai Chi in the front room. The hard part isn't the movements. It's being seen doing something that feels unfamiliar and slightly ridiculous.
The kitchen is out. It has a big double patio door, and while I know full well that nobody is going to be looking through it, I still don’t want to be doing something faintly absurd while I wave my arms about in front of the washing machine.
So the front room it is. Curtains closed.
I don’t do the D words. Dancing and DIY have never been my strengths, and I’ve always been the bloke who loses track of which hand is which the moment anyone asks me to copy something. Tai Chi is basically a list of my two worst enemies, coordinated: move your feet, move your hands, do them at different times, and breathe while you’re at it.
I’m going to be bad at it for a while. That’s the point of starting.
What I actually need isn’t much. A bit of room to take a couple of steps in each direction, nothing to trip over, ten or fifteen minutes, and a willingness to look like someone who has temporarily forgotten how arms work.
The first few sessions will probably be awkward. Why are we moving our hands like that? What exactly is the left foot doing? Are we sure this isn’t going to end with me on the carpet?
Eventually the movements should stop being things I’m trying to remember and start being things I just do. Until then, I’ll take ten minutes of deliberate, controlled movement over an ambitious plan I never start.
The goal isn’t to become good at Tai Chi. It’s to become slightly less shit at moving on purpose.
That’s easier to measure than it sounds. I didn’t have to think about which foot went where. I didn’t nearly fall over. I got through the sequence without stopping. Turning round felt less stiff. Those are real markers, and unlike the scales, they don’t go up and down every morning and tell me I’ve failed.
So here’s the list I’m working towards, and it’s a more interesting definition of getting healthier than just getting lighter:
- Weight: keep trending down.
- Fitness: stairs without needing a fresh shirt.
- Mobility: move better.
- Coordination: become slightly less shit.
And if anyone asks what I’m doing with the curtains closed, I’ll tell them the truth: I’m learning to move properly, and it’s going to look ridiculous for a while.