sometimes my tiger roars, sometimes my snake snaps and sometimes my dragon takes control.

Last week's kao shi class introduced a whole new concept. Thinking about the different emotions or attitudes at play when doing a snake vs. dragon form was really eye-opening, and I felt I could relate or understand. While picturing the animals movements didn't magically make my techniques perfect, it helped me understand the concepts intellectually, even though I still struggle to articulate them. Up until now, I have always just thought of very one-dimensional, broad emotions, like "be angry" when attacked, but Saturday's exercise blew my mind a bit.

I find it really intriguing to think about my patterns when confronted with certain conflicts and how my reactions really depend on a variety of factors. It's simple to say I got angry in a certain situation but at a closer look there are so many nuances in my attitude that can be very different from one "angry" interaction to the next. I have moments when I put my foot down and stubbornness is the overwhelming approach; other times, annoyance triggers snappiness, but I have also experienced pure rage and blindly, fearlessly running into battle. Analyzing my state of mind in some of these situations, how I react and recover, also highlights the differences in how energy gets released in each of these different scenarios.

It is also shockingly easy to match these different conflict patterns to one of the five animals. I'm going to have fun with that for a bit, trying to identify some of the animal traits in my reaction patterns, and I'm curious to see if I find one that is more prominent and, if so, which one.

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