Letters to Justin (February 2025)

We are all students of the Chi, and we all have different paths of varying lengths. I know that my path, thus far, is the short one of a novice. So, my observations reflect that. 

Monkey spawn that I am, most of my Chi feeling comes through my hands. Sometimes it’s a feeling through my tan t’ien, but mostly, right now, I feel what the Chi is saying to me by the feeling of what’s going on in my hands. 

That being said, when I ground, it’s through both my feet and my hands. Even then, when I straighten up after grounding, and let my hands relax with my fingertips pointing to the floor, I still feel the Chi flowing like honey off the ends of my fingers. When (if) I flow into the next movement from the grounded position (without letting my fingers “drain”), I carry some aspect of Chi forward from the prior movement into the next movement. That’s probably a primitive way to describe it, but it’s the best I can do. I play around with this a lot when I do a practice on my own, just to see what happens. 

Actually, I think I have a difficult time letting the Chi go. Gathering Chi (or however you want to say it) is such a fun feeling that I just want to keep hanging on to it. I’ve been playing around with different aspects of gathering and letting go with my instructor (Marie Dotts) and she’s actually got me to where I can sometimes completely relax and let go. Not every time, mind you, just sometimes. And that brings me to the next point about fluttering fingers. I’ve never had fluttering fingers, but I’ve noticed now (and this didn’t happen until after our 2024 conference practices), that if I completely let go and let the Chi flow out the tips of my fingers at just the instant when my front leg goes from mostly yin to mostly yang, I’ll get a slight fluttering in the fingers of one of my hands (either left or right but not both).

I’m a work in progress. My tan t’ien sometimes laughs with me when I screw up a movement. I think s/he finds my attempts at communicating rather amusing at times. That’s okay. I do, too.