Justin Stone Speaks on T’ai Chi Chih (February 2024)

Editor’s Note: These excerpts are from Spiritual Odyssey, available on .

Editor’s Note: The 50th anniversary of the origination of T’ai Chi Chih is being celebrating this summer, July 25-28, in Albuquerque. Justin spoke and wrote frequently of the future of TCC and its teachers. If you are a teacher, come be inspired! ABQ24 or bust!

The Future of T’ai Chi Chih

T’ai Chi Chih (TCC) has begun to spread. Little pockets of enthusiasm have begun to form in isolated places, and these tend to grow rather rapidly. It is exciting to see this. No amount of planning can cause this result; TCC is spreading and proliferating because of what it is and because of the teh (inner sincerity) of those teaching it.

From the beginning I have felt that the future of TCC lay not in Madison Avenue or Hollywood, but in the quality and dedication of the teachers. Early on, teachers found how rewarding it is to teach TCC, to see the joyous, energetic look of students’ faces, and to feel the excitement of the group energy. My trust has not been misplaced. The quality of people who have been led to become TCC teachers is very high. When people come to the annual teachers’ conferences, they find others such as themselves, and the atmosphere is a very positive one.

Active teachers should make a good living from teaching TCC, providing they stick to it and do not expect instant rewards. Some momentum has to be built, and giving presentations regularly, not just in the beginning, is one of the best ways to build it.

Attitude of Idealism

For TCC to grow in the future the way it has in the past, it is necessary to maintain an idealistic attitude. I believe teachers should earn good money from sincere teaching – the worker is worthy of their hire — but TCC must not be thought of primarily as a business. Teachers bring something of great value to students — greater than they know — and so many see the changes in their lives as practice leads them to live the T’ai Chi way. This is a great reward for the teacher, who benefits from their own practice. In the audio recording Justin Stone Speaks on TCC I talk about the effect on karma. As TCC becomes more and more successful, more and more people may be tempted to think of it in the manner of a business endeavor. Keep on offering service; you’ll be very successful.

Teh: Power of Inner Sincerity

Teh (inner sincerity) is the basis of TCC. It is the power of Inner Sincerity, as exemplified by TCC teachers, that has been responsible for the rapid growth of TCC. This type of person who is drawn to TCC, and wants to become a teacher, is almost always a deeply sincere person, eager to pass on the benefits he or she has gained from TCC practice. So often I get letters from new teachers saying, “TCC has changed my life. Thank you, thank you. I am eager to help others gain the same benefits from the discipline you originated.” This is more rewarding than any riches I might have gained from TCC. There isn’t the slightest doubt in my mind of the future of TCC; there are reasons why it is here, and there are reasons why you, the teacher, have been brought to it. It is not by accident that you are teaching TCC, and you have a responsibility to keep the practice pure and to be completely honest in your dealings with students.

Emotionalism and sentimentality have little use in the practice of the discipline. My own consideration has always been for the welfare of the teachers, not my own, because I feel deeply the power of the teachers’ teh. It is our jewel, and I fully expect this great power to bring TCC to deserving people all over the planet. Never underrate TCC or feel that it exists only for our own benefit.

I congratulate you on being a TCC teacher! Please never stop trying to improve your practice; this is part of the responsibility of being a teacher.

Note: TCC should not be thought of as exercise. Exercise implies effort, and effort is counterproductive in TCC. It must be done softly with the “effort of no effort” to be most effective. Sincere teachers, who practice a good deal themselves, gradually come to realize the true way of movement in TCC. Those who give careless interviews in which TCC is cited as “exercise” are doing harm to TCC. The purpose of TCC is to circulate and balance the Chi, and to do this, movement must be from the center of the body, not from the shoulders and arms. “How to move” is the most important point of TCC.