Now THAT would be my ideal class. I took a Tai chi class about 5 years ago. We would begin by slapping ourselves (literally). Slap, slap, slap, all over our bodies starting with the feet and working our way up to the head. This would take about 20 minutes.

Then we'd massage ourselves, twisting the muscles in our calves and working our way up to the shoulders, putting our hands over one shoulder as far as we could and then rolling the shoulder back and forth. This last exercise was actually the best one in my opinion. I still do it today when my neck gets stiff. It's about the only thing of use I took from the course.

After about 40 minutes of this, we'd begin the actually movements. I sprained my knee during the movement where you twist the upper body while extending one arm out. For some reason, I just couldn't manage that movement.

I'm glad I took the course because it made me realize I'm a aerobic dance person. I prefer study fast motion to the more slow, calculating moves of Tai chi. Perhaps this is also why I prefer dream journaling to meditation. Meditation requires a quite mind and dream journaling requires an active one.

Whether in exercising the brain or the body, I prefer motion over stillness.

Now when it comes to house work, that's a different story. Too bad laziness isn't considered a virtue...

The slapping was to bring the blood to the surface of the skin. It worked, needless to say. But a waste of time in my opinion. The massaging was enough.