Lou Reed’s Practice
Designed by Bearmore
Inspired by Lou ReedWhen you can't slow down, the body learns one line.
Slower, calmer, more settled. Three centring breaths, a long Chen-style Tai Chi form, then time to listen to Reed’s music with no distractions. About 56 minutes of slow mindful discipline.
The runsheet
Three centring breaths
Reed practiced a habit he traced to his early school: "three deep breaths." Start here and settle first. Slow the breathing as far as is comfortable and don’t force the count.
6 min activityBearmore’s thoughts on doing breath work before tai chi
These go especially well together because breath work delivers the regulated rhythm Tai Chi's movement is led by, so the practice picks up where breath work left off.
Chen-style Tai Chi form
Reed practised Chen style daily under Master Ren GuangYi, often an hour or two. Move through the forms slowly and in order. Shorten to twenty minutes if that is the time you have.
20 min activityBearmore’s thoughts on doing tai chi before listening to music (mindful)
There's a useful connection here because the contemplative state can flow into mindful listening without much shift.
Sit with the music
Reed wrote Hudson River Wind Meditations as "an adjunct to meditation, Tai Chi and bodywork." Take this final session to listen without distractions, this is a Bearmore addition.
10 min activityTime well spent.
46m that belonged to you — not the inbox, not anyone else.
The breakdown
Burst evaluation
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About this Burst
Lou Reed (1942 to 2013) co-founded the Velvet Underground and shaped decades of New York rock, from Transformer to Berlin. Off stage he became a devoted Chen-style Tai Chi practitioner of more than twenty years, training under Master Ren GuangYi. His posthumous book The Art of the Straight Line, edited by Laurie Anderson, collects his writing on Tai Chi, music and meditation.