Confessions Of A Practicing Student

PULL QUOTE: small things can still resonate within [the] larger

T’ai Chi Chih has been a search for many elusive things, including Chi and joy. I’m now more aware of when Chi is blocked and unbalanced when it bubbles up from my feet. I don’t think it’s in my feet at all, though I try to walk softly on the earth and keep the entrance open. I feel connected to others in class, to the wider world, to my own sense of self in the moment. I can feel peace; I can feel calming as my motions slow me and ground me. Joy is harder to feel.

TCC looks easy to perform but it takes strength. On the days I practice in class, I need to arrive well rested. The practice requires upright posture and concentration, and often my legs tire long before we’ve reached Cosmic Consciousness Pose. But I’ve only been practicing a few years, and I don’t practice with the consistency it might take. I like the end of class when Monica says, “Sat, Chit, Ananda.” I try to learn from and absorb the meaning of those words. I like when we she intones, “Let us go through our day with loving thoughts, kind words, peaceful intentions.” In my mind I change the loving to gentle, which Monica says is okay, and I often repeat them to myself, carrying them with me as I walk across the parking lot to my car.

Monica told us the coolest thing one time: She said that even if you can’t do the movements, you can imagine doing them, and it will work for you just as well. I like that, and I try it sometimes with Bird Flaps Its Wings and Push Pull. The up and down and forward and backward seeming easiest to visualize and thus experience. One time she said something different about Pulling in the Energy that gave me a new idea. She usually says, “Imagine pulling in energy from the most distant star,” which to me meant securing strength from an outside source; I visualized the yellow planet Saturn with its rings and tried hard to pull from it. But one time she said “healing energy,” which sounded totally different to me, and helped me understand the pulling-in movement as accepting and repairing more than acquiring and building. I liked that, as it felt less challenging and more in tune with the reasons I practice.

Sometimes, on nice days in the summer, we practice outdoors. Outdoor practice feels more true to the spirit of TCC and ancient Japanese monks out in the wilderness. But I don’t like practicing in the wind or the full summer sun. I like to practice a few movements in the still morning air of September under the silent branches of a huge oak tree out my back door. The branches are light grey and black grooves texture the bark; the scalloped oak leaves hang cool and darkly green; the sun brightens the sky above the tree, but does not penetrate to where I stand. My favorite movements at that time are Daughter on the Mountaintop and Daughter in the Valley. I spend a lot of my energy being a daughter, and those moments, shrouded in morning shade and deep privacy, feel true to my life. I add Six Healing Sounds for good measure. The five “chuies” rise through the oak tree, circling the trunk and running along the branches, then melt into the leaves.

I’ve learned how the practice separates and then reunites energy around the core, the tan t’ien. I feel that place just two inches below my middle most significantly when I go to sleep at night. I feel the warmth and calm spread from it through my body so that I can let go and sleep. Monica has read us more than one piece on letting go, which is almost as interesting a topic as Chi or softness. What I like about taking TCC is how the small things can still resonate within that larger, more elusive body of knowledge.