The Chi Is Real, Not Virtual

I am a new T’ai Chi Chih instructor, and my heart is filled to the brim with joy and gratitude. This group – our group – of teacher candidates was one of the first to have taken this powerful and profound journey towards accreditation virtually, using Zoom. And what a journey it was.

Though the training was virtual, the Chi was – and is – real. Daniel Pienciak’s gentle wisdom and miraculous, meticulous training was real. April Leffler’s loving attention to detail and detailed attention to loving was real. I could feel the power of their pulse. They stood with me, beside me, within me as I stood alone in my living room, yet I was not alone. My teacher training experience was not “virtual” at all, because the Chi itself is not virtual. I feel like saying it again; like shouting it from the rooftops: The Chi is real.

Together, Dan, April and the superb auditors who participated in the five-day session taught us how to teach. Yes, the technical, Zoom-related hiccups we occasionally confronted were certainly real – but life offers us occasional hiccups, and we must embrace them with grace. We must embrace them with the joy that TCC generates. The Chi is not virtual. It is real.

What a blessing, then, that the power, the principles and the practice of TCC are not bound by circumstance. The glorious purity of the Chi – that vital energy that exists within us all – transcends time, space and technology. Its power certainly and easily transcends this pandemic.

That I have been so lovingly and meticulously taught to teach others how to activate, balance and circulate this divine energy is a blessing of untold magnitude. I have been taught to teach others. This is not virtual. This miracle is real. The flow of the Chi is now. It is everywhere. Flow is flow.

My instructor, Carmen Brocklehurst, who helped prepare me for the teacher training course and is my beloved sister-spirit-guide, often reminds me that when we practice TCC, we are not looking to float … but to flow. There is a difference.

In our movements, we want to remain anchored, centered, rooted firmly in our feet and to the ground beneath us – no whirling Magic Carpet rides or swooping, soaring dips and dives – but we also want to flow from our center with softness, continuity and circularity. Flow – not float – “slow motion in a dream,” as Justin Stone says. Moving meditation.

During the teacher accreditation course, I had breakthroughs. I developed fine, fresh friendships with the other candidates and the instructors. My inner vision became more acute. I have stepped into the joyous and noble role of teacher, a blessing of untold magnitude.

There is a line I love from “Healing Thru Joy!” Justin’s powerful poem and lyric: “Joy in the Heart! Joy in the Mind! Joy in the Soul!”

Shhh. Listen. Can you hear it? It is the sound of my laughter. It is the movement of joy in my soul. I have been taught to teach. This wasn’t a virtual experience at all. The Chi is real, as is my boundless joy.