Moving Toward & Through The Center

I experienced a small teaching epiphany while working with students with physical problems including Parkinson’s disease (which causes significant challenges with balance, coordination and strength). It has also helped other students avoid bad habits such as trying to make the practice “grand” by winding or grinding their arms or trying to push off with their back foot. Not being athletes or dancers, many people have no idea what moving from the center means, and it isn’t that easy to explain.

Lately I have begun to express the moving-from-the-center concept as seeking and recognizing the brief moments of secure neutral balance that happen when both feet are flat on the floor and our hands are passing in front of the body. Teaching people with poor balance to move toward that brief secure and peaceful moment, rather than focusing on moving away from it, has made a significant difference in their confidence and ability to enjoy the practice. It has also improved the form of my other students, some of them long-time practitioners.

By finding that safe place in the middle of each repetition of every move and enjoying moving toward then through it, we experience a stronger sense of balance and physical quiet which generates the energy for the next part of the movement and produces the feeling of mindful joy and contentment so many of us treasure in this practice.

Teaching this has been interesting. Some have recalled how it felt as a child on a playground swing, with movement then release followed by an opposing movement and another release as gravity brought them down. When swinging, the physical properties of the ropes define the shape and scope of each cycle. In T’ai Chi Chih, our relaxed bodies and limbs define the shape and scope of each repetition of each movement.

This way of looking at “centeredness” is really nothing new and just a way of thinking about what we all were taught from the beginning. I remember Justin Stone yelling at a group of experienced instructors: “Why are you waving your arms around?” Let TCC do TCC. Don’t fight it; Don’t work it. Less is more.

As we age, we become increasingly aware that grace is found in the quiet places; savor them. So, relax; the practice will use gravity to generate its own energy. With this mild emphasis on seeking the middle of the movement rather than aiming for the edges, students learn right away to let the whole body shift naturally, carrying the arms and hands, and at the last, letting their hands gracefully provide each move’s inherent expression while maintaining the new center of balance. Beautiful.