practicing taiji to music
i do my tai chi to soulfly.
Practicing taichi to music(helpful or not?)
In the realm of Tai-chi we see various methods of practice such as setting the environment or "mood" in which to practice your meditation.
Some say that Silemce is best for it helps you to focus inward without any distractions. Others say that practicing your taichi to calm music or in an environment with an audible background helps to relax your movements.
Either way works, i feel, and i was wondering what the practitioners here listen to if in fact they DO thier form to music.
for example i utilize ambient soundworld music at times:
"structures from silence" by Steve Roach
" Atmospheric conditions" by Steve Roach
Many respects,,,The Willow Sword
Music formulated for the Taichi movements
As far as Music specifically designed to the taichi movements,,,i am not sure i would be comfortable with this. in my earlier analogy of doing taich chi at a waterfall as opposed to the park in the middle of the booming city, i believe that the music should be as the waterfall is,,in the background. since a waterfall is not specifically designed for the taichi movements,,nor would the music be the same. just background ambient sound space , in my opinion is the best way.
for those of you that are interested in the ambient soundworlds i highly recommend the works of www.steveroach.com ,, my recommendations for meditation or taichi would be ``Slow Heat``
``Atmospheric Conditions`` ``World`s Edge disc 2`(to the threshold of silence).
Many respects,,,The Willow Sword
For all of you that like to listen to music as you train...
As someone who likes to listen to music as he practices, I have been looking for a while now for a way to listen to music outdoors during my practice and yet not disturb anyone else with loud music. Personal tape players were no good, the sound dropped out and the things were too heavy to stay on my belt during particularly active movements. Personal CD players were no good because they either skipped, popped open, or fell off and smashed to pieces. MP3 players were no good because They either didn't hold enough and had no slot for memory cards, or didn't hold enough and the memory cards cost an arm and a leg.
But this week I happened upon minidisk players at a local store, which made claims of being skip-free, playing a variety of formats, and a few other things. But I bought one because heck, if it didn't work I could take it back.
The one I got was a "sport" model type, with a lock that hinges over both the battery compartment door as well as the disk door to keep either from popping open. It also made claims of being water resistant so that sweat would not affect it that much, as well as being completely skip resistant.
So I recorded some stuff from cd onto it through my computer, and decided to test out the skip-free claim. Skipping is the thing that bugs me the most about cd players. With full, violent fa-jing movements, jumps, stomps, etc...the thing never once skipped. And this was when it was dangling from its cord from my belt. Nor did it skip when I tucked it into my pocket and did the same sort of stuff. The anti-skip features, whatever they may be on this thing, work extremely well.
Besides that, the disk this thing came with holds a lot. Just to get the feel of the program that came with it, I put a couple of cds on it. I got the entire re-release of No Rest For The Wicked, plus the entire re-release of Diary Of A Madman (both of which contain bonus tracks now, which are also on the disk). Plus, I had nearly the entire Blizzard Of Ozz album on my computer from a previous attempt at testing the limits of an MP3 player that didn't use a memory card (and also would not take the entire cd, so I deleted two tracks to fit it on), and it held even that with room to spare. And this is on the medium compression setting, and I have not noticed any lessening of quality of sound. There is another compression setting that will allow you to fit about twice that much on one disk (6 entire albums), though I have not tried it yet.
The disks run about 1-2 dollars apiece, depending on grade, so they are more expensive than cds, but far less expensive than memory sticks for MP3 players. The player/recorder itself was only about $150 after tax, though they make other non-sport models that cost a bit less.
I'm not trying to advertise or anything, so I'm not telling brand names or anything. I'm just very pleased with the thing, and thought I'd let some of you know in case you were looking for something similar. And in addition to all this, the thing runs on one battery. I've had it for two days now, and have listened to it enough to run down several batteries on a tape player, a couple at least for a cd players, but so far the battery meter on this player still shows it to be fully charged.
There is, however, one catch. I originally wanted to purchase the thing so that I could fit a few select cds onto one disk. The cds have sound pulses in them that induce Theta state brain wave activity, which is the state you go into in deep meditation. The pulses are, I assume between 3.5-7 Hz, which is the Theta range. But according to the manual that came with the thing, the player only plays sound frequencies that humans actually hear (though you can still be affected by frequencies you can't hear), and the frequency range for humans starts at about 10 Hz. So I doubt that the frequencies come through on this particular player. I'll still test it out, though. But that doesn't mean that one couldn't play music with sound frequencies hidden within to induce Alpha or Beta states, which should be within the range Humans can hear, and therefore ought to come out through this player.
Anyway, I know I'm out of the loop technologically, but I thought I'd let you guys know anyway, just in case you were lookin for something similar.