I just took a month long break from rock climbing…and unfortunately as it turns out the Tai Chi form. The climbing break was due to my fingers, they were feeling the strain and I had to take a break. The Tai Chi hiatus was just an unfortunate confluence of a long vacation with lots of work before and after.
As I experienced after a previous lengthy break from Tai Chi, cranking up the form again was painful. I could just feel how utterly unsharp I was – not that I was all that great to begin with – but it was really bad, out of rhythm, unrelaxed, just “off”. Surprisingly, the climbing went surprisingly well. I stayed on the easy routes, but I was surprised how much muscle memory and technique remained. The stamina and strength was not all there, but surprisingly not nearly as diminished as I expected.
To drag all this back into architecture. I think the practice of architecture, as a professional in the building process, a our work is much more like rock climbing than Tai Chi. Its a practice of working through problems and sustained effort, not as much a high finesse skill activity. And similarly taking a long break is a lot more refreshing than one might intially expect.