1. I am providing a public service. Try to be open minded and fair. Try my best to be accurate. Try my best to find all the relevant resources on a topic. Try my best to be considerate and respectful towards others. Try my best to uphold the fine traditions of the internal martial arts. Encourage others to learn and practice Taijiquan, Qigong and other internal martial arts. Learn more about Chinese culture, traditions, history and philosophy. Continue to follow the Way.
2. Add something to improve one
Cloud Hands webpage each
day.
3. My main focus in 2007 will be on
Sun Taijiquan
and Staff Weapons. My current (Spring/Summer 2007) practice
goals include
detailed studies of the
Sun Taijiquan 73 Standard Competition Form, the Chen
18 Pole Form, and the Yang Style Taijiquan 24 and
108 hand forms. Currently, I am
teaching the Yang and Sun styles of Taijiquan.
4. Post every other day to the
Cloud Hands
Blog. Keep notes from my daily reading and practice in my
Valley Spirit Journal.
This will also preserve the daily research if the blogs should crash. Back
up all files on data disks every quarter.
5.
Enjoy what I am doing, don't rush,
and be patient. Incomplete
work,
ongoing webpage construction projects, semi-completed objectives, slow progress,
and little improvements are all quite acceptable. Think in the long run
... many months and many years. Projects half done, a quarter done, or a
tenth done are all OK. This is a long term project - like designing,
planting and tending a
garden. Establish
targets for aiming, but don't fret if I miss. Just aim and release the
arrow! "What? Me Worry?"
Some folks get annoyed with me because of my approach in this respect. They only want a finished product - for free. Learning tai chi chuan is a slow process, requiring patience. My readers will just have to be more patient. Desires for benefits being free, complete, detailed, easy to acquire, and readily available are unrealistic. My recommendation to my readers is for them to return to the website - again and again.
People write to me asking "Will you ever finish this webpage?" I tell them "ever so slowly." That's part of the Taijiquan spirit.
6. Take pride in the uniqueness and depth of the
7. Stay consistent to my general webpage design
8. Promote
9. My writing and research reflect my experiences, my
daily practice of Taijiquan, what I learn from many teachers, and my personal
development along the Way. Since I live in Northern California, in a rural
area, and near a small town, I don't have a teacher to study with directly on
the topics that I am interest in as
often as I would like; consequently, I do not represent any lineage or school of
Taijiquan.
I'm just one guy, a Taijiquan player, practicing and learning on his own ... an
independent. Fortunately,
electronic and print resources for the study of Taijiquan give me reasonable
alternatives for learning from experts and masters, and for advancing in my
study and practice of Taijiquan. Occasional workshops and private lessons
round out my learning options.
10. Work on The Valley Spirit Journal, The Cloud Hands Blog, and The Cloud Hands
Website will be like keeping a journal. Read
the article
"How to Keep a T'ai Chi Journal" by Carol Ann McFrederick in T'ai
Chi, June, 2002, Volume 26, No. 3, pp. 59-60. Professor McFrederick's encourages us to write immediately after our training sessions, to record the changes in our body in
response to training or movements, to use the journal to facilitate the learning process,
to record how our interpretation of T'ai Chi changes over time, and to use the
journal for purposes of self-discovery. She urges the writer to use drawings as
well as words. I try to be more tactful, reserved, focused, organized and
formal in my Cloud Hands Website and Blog publications; and, quite often, a
great deal looser, open, trivial, rambling and personal in the Valley Spirit
Journal. The former two publications are more finished, and the latter has
the first drafts, reflections, bumbling, notes, and idea gathering.
Precisely the least, the softest,
lightest, a lizard's rustling,
a breath, a flash, a moment - a little makes the way
of the best happiness.
- Frederich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
Red Bluff, Tehama County, North Sacramento Valley, Northern California, U.S.A.
Cities in the area: Oroville, Paradise, Durham, Chico, Hamilton City, Orland,
Corning,
Rancho Tehama, Los Molinos, Tehama, Proberta, Gerber, Manton, Cottonwood,
Anderson, Shasta Lake, Palo Cedro, and Redding, CA, California
© Michael P. Garofalo, 2007, All Rights Reserved
Biography of Michael P. Garofalo
Qigong: Links and Bibliography
Cloud Hands: T'ai Chi Ch'uan and Chi Kung Website
Chen Style Taijiquan and Qigong
Valley Spirit Taijiquan, Red Bluff, California
Detailed Index to the Cloud Hands Website
Tai Chi Chuan, Taijiquan, T'ai Chi Ch'uan,
Tai Chi, Tai Ji Quan, Taiji, Tai Ji Chuan
Chi Kung, Qi Gong, Qigong, Chee Gung, Qi, Chi, Tu Na, Dao Yin, Yi, Neigong,
GongFu, Kung Fu
Last Updated: April 1, 2007
