A Community Of TCC Practitioners

While attending a wonderful T’ai Chi Chih teacher accreditation course in Denver (hosted by Marie Dotts, taught by Dan Pienciak and assisted by Pam Towne Duncan), I was again strongly reminded of the reason we call ourselves a community. It is our true sense of caring and service to others. These two important reasons are coupled with a sincere knowing that TCC is a healing discipline that takes us beyond being a simple exercise form.

I audited the course even though I was not sponsoring any of the candidates because Marie Dotts is growing a new and powerful community near me and I wanted to celebrate all the work and love that has gone into her endeavor.

It was great to watch the candidates come in truly prepared in the discipline of the TCC movements and philosophy – and ready to learn how to teach TCC to others. Marie had done a first-rate job preparing her students/candidates (as had the other teachers who sent their students). Many of the candidates, nonetheless, were humbly sure that they had much to learn and would probably be sent home. Who in their right mind would send home a student with such teh?

Dan taught and Pam assisted with love and depth. Auditing teachers were invited to help in creating a community event. We came from different parts of the country, but what we celebrated during this training was not the differences, but the beauty with which we flowed and harmonized as we did TCC. Because of this, slight corrections were easy to make, and both the candidates and auditing teachers were open to growing. Each person carried in his or her heart a desire to have a deeper TCC experience.

A community is built on trust, not only of a individual’s own ability to do things well, but also on knowing that whatever seems different comes from a sincere belief that we are doing it correctly. Chih (Knowledge of) helps us find the path to the deeper way to do TCC. It seems there is no end to this depth.

All candidates received their accreditation, several teachers joined in the final practice led by the new teachers, and we were all tremendously happy. We were all learning to love and share the Chi.