Connecting to Your Bubbling Spring

Phase 1: Several weeks ago, our instructor Marie Dotts showed us the connection point for the Bubbling Spring. We all removed our shoes and/or socks and then located the “three dimes.” Simple enough. We’ve been playing with those for years. Then she showed us the connection point for the Bubbling Spring. It’s centered just below the two dimes on the ball of your foot. If you push on it just right, all your toes curl (versus only certain toes curling when you press on the ball dime points).

How interesting is that? Even after all these years of T’ai Chi Chih (TCC), I still have some difficulty keeping my awareness in my feet. After sports, running, competitive fighting, and working, my conscious awareness of the sensations in my feet just happens.

However, the Bubbling Spring point… that’s a different story. As soon as we put our feet down, I not only felt the point, I could also feel a warm stream running into my feet and up. Physically, it felt like a point larger than the dimes, like a liquid solid.

Phase 2: How to play with this? Starting my movements, I felt the Spring with my weighted leg. It seems like it wanted to rise, but no matter how much I relaxed my knees and hips (and brain), it felt stuck. What to do? Ask Marie.

For years, I’ve noticed that when Marie does her movements, she’s playing with something that I haven’t gotten yet. In the middle of one of our practices, I asked, “Marie, I’ve noticed that when you start each movement, you have something that I don’t have. I can feel it and almost see it, but I can’t describe it. What is it?” So, she told me. When she begins her movement, her weighted leg roots deep. As she begins her weight shift, the Earth energy/Chi flows up and about her and she plays with it. Well, that sounded simple.

Easier said than done. My t’an tien is chortling in the background, so I decided to listen to it: “Hey, Monkey Man, put those monkey paws of yours to use and Jing it.” Gad!

Phase 3: Now, when I start each movement, I wait until I feel the Bubbling Spring connection in my weighted leg. Then as I raise my hands into position, I can bring the Earth energy up to the “play position.” Only then do I step out a light touch with my forward leg. I’m sometimes painfully slow and it takes me a while to do all this.

I’ve taught this to all my students and talk them through it (for now) just to help them slow down their openings, so they won’t be halfway through their first movement while I’m still playing with stepping out. Every movement now has its own polarity, so to speak. Hand-to-hand, hand-to-t’an tien, hand-to-that which surrounds us. Or all combinations. It’s an interesting and joyful (and sometimes funny) feeling.