i am coming to believe that all of the tai chi exercises, like the horse-stance , and the first of the eight-silk, are supposed be done for minutes, not seconds, 

like, they need to be held for much longer than your attention can hold, and in that stretch of attention-less experience, something happens under the hood ; a larger beast than your current attention mind kicks into the forefront of your experience ...

actually, that works for yoga asanas more than anything else.. i might be projecting from there

is chi in the hands warmth or force ?