TCC Dreaming: No Resistance

Ellen Tatge, Albuquerque, NM

On Justin’s suggestion, I am excerpting part of a letter I wrote recently to him, for inclusion in The Vital Force. He felt others would find it interesting.

The Seijaku training was a very powerful experience for me, and the practice seems to become more and more powerful all the time. I hear your voice so clearly saying “Feel the resistance,” as we move through the “hard” part of the movements. This has become a very strong metaphor for me, as I feel my own resistance and move through it to whatever is on the other side. When I returned home after the conference, I felt a very clear sense that I had been perceiving some of my own resistance as coming from forces outside myself, when indeed, it was simply inside me and therefore, was moveable. This has been a very potent insight for me.

I have also been astonished at the change in my T’ai Chi Chih–much softer and fluid, much more grounded, and the whole front of the torso more open. I even explain and teach some of the movements (the taffy moves especially) very differently because they feel so different to me. Thank you, Justin, for your corrections and instruction while I was with you.

I have begun to dream in T’ai Chi Chih and in Seijaku — it is as if it is another language that I slip into more and more easily. I woke in the middle of the night once, having just completed practicing T’ai Chi Chih in my dream and I felt the beautiful flow of peace and relaxation. One night I dreamt of the currents that flow so strongly during Seijaku, and it was making my body jerk (very powerfully, but very gently), the energy was so strong. Later, I had a massage and the same thing began to happen during the chakra balancing. I also had a dream in which I was caught in an ocean current and swept around a point of land and then back to the land. The reason I call this a T’ai Chi dream is that there was absolutely no fear, no resistance–I was one with the water and the current and enjoying the process, even though it was an unexpected experience.