Recently I have been practicing Eternal Spring Chi Kung at home and not going in to the center as much. I reasoned that I was spending more time practicing at home so I didn't need as much studio time.

I skipped tai chi for almost two weeks. This afternoon I stopped in for a class before an evening meeting. Great comraderie with other students and joking with Sifu. Riding the train afterwards, reflecting on the time away and the time just spent, a certain frustration cleared up.

One of my tasks is to help look after the web sites for the school and the non-profit center. Of course we want tons of visitors to the sites, but that requires content. Once you've put up a translation of the Tao Te Ching, some photos or videos of the master, and a class schedule, there's not much else. Check out some other tai chi sites, and that's pretty much what you'll find. So what's the deal?

Direct transmission is the deal. As with other escoteric practices, tai chi and the tao can only be passed on by direct communication between master and student. And it's not just verbal communication. The most valuable communication is the non-verbal.

There's watching Sifu move through a certain part of the form. There's the feeling of the energy in his punch (thank god he stops well short of hitting!). I'm convinced that the other senses are equally affected, but I'm hard pressed to describe it. Most importantly, there is experiencing the ways Sifu lives and reacts and deals with life.

And there's no way of putting that on a web site.