simply puzzled

Please, please see a doctor before doing any T'ai Chi. T'ai Chi requires each ankle to be able to support at least 70% of your body weight, and your ankle might not yet be up to the task. Continually asking it to perform might significantly impair your progress. Moreover, if your ankle isn't healed, you might develop very sloppy technique, such as bad weight shifts, to compensate. That sloppy technique will be much harder to unlearn than coming back from an extended period with no practice. If you do receive the approval of a doctor and continue practicing, make sure you are practicing under a good instructor who can correct such issues as s/he sees them arise. And while you are at the doctor, ask them about fasting. They can perform tests to advise you of any issues that might arise, supplements that will be needed, etc.

In Kung Fu, we use the term "gates" as a way of thinking about attacking and defending. Your arms are like doors on a hinge swinging to open and close "gates". For example, if I swing my right arm down to block a kick to my groin, I've closed that gate, but I've opened up my upper-right gate. The point is that unless one has four arms, they cannot close all their gates at once. As you defend, you always open up new opportunities for your opponent to strike. I'm not sure if this is helpful at all, but it's all I have to offer.

My taiji comes downline from William C.C. Chen. William barely ever speaks about qi, but the few times my teacher has gotten him to speak about it privately, he's expressed the thought that qi is concentration energy. For example, if I give you chinese characters to copy inside the traditional 9-box grid, and you don't know chinese writing well, you're going to be thinking in your head about making them, and you'll write them poorly. However, if I were to ask you to copy a phrase in English, you will be able to do it well, even if I make it hard by asking you to write along a curved line. That's because you're not thinking about it in your head, but rather putting your "qi" in your hand. Try it, and you'll understand what I mean. Reading the works of Chen Man Ching, this view seems to be inline with his thinking. So, if you were to come to my class, you probably would not hear the word "qi" very often, unless we were talking about trying to move our "qi" into our hands for push-hands or further up the blade of a sword when we are fencing. We are practical people. My teacher likes to say "this kid [me] doesn't have a mystical bone in his body." He means it as a compliment. We are more concerned with getting our body mechanics perfect than trying to move an invisible energy through our bodies. When you are repeating the movements that your teacher does, think of yourself as an engineer. Every time you do a posture, you're trying to build the absolute strongest structure possible for the applications of that position. For example, on single whip, I should be able to push and push your hand inward to your shoulder without you moving. For golden pheasant stands on one leg, I should be able to push you on opposite side of your rooted leg, and you should remain fully rooted. Thinking about these sorts of concerns will greatly advance your practice. As you explore each posture, your instructor will be able to help you determine where your energies should be focused. And as you advance, you'll be able to think of each posture not as a fixed position but as a movement.

If you can afford all the vacuum jars you need, by all means go for it. Otherwise, I recommend going to the canning jar section of the supermarket and getting a case of canning jars (I like Ball jars) for about $1 a pop. Get the type with the two part lids, and clean/dry them well before putting anything in. To give you an idea how well they keep herbs, yesterday I decided to dump some old herbs I have had sitting around in canning jars for about 5 years. When I opened them up, they still had a very strong aroma. If you have something finely textured or oily (like oily paprika), put it in a plastic sandwich bag, the kind you fold over not the kind with the ziploc slider, twist it shut, and put it in a jar.

About my interest in Daoism: I've practiced martial arts from the time I was 10 or so. For the past two years, I have been practicing Taijiquan almost exclusively. Many of the concepts to which other martial arts give lip service: use your opponent's strength against him, yield to your opponent's strikes, and so forth, are the very cornerstones of Taijiquan, which I think is what keeps me coming back for more. As I began to practice, I started researching Daoism, reading the Dao de Jing, the Book of Zhuangzi, the Yi Jing, the works of Chen Man Ching, and learning some Mandarin. I found that my research and my practice of Kung Fu fed off of one another: as I read about becoming empty, I was better able to yield to an opponent's attack, and as I was better able to yield to an opponent's attack, I better understood the masters' writings on becoming empty. My other interests: I'm a second-year graduate student in historic preservation (of architecture). I like to bike, cook up a (vegetarian) storm, and work on my Chinese calligraphy, which is quite bad.