Do TCC Properly for Maximum Benefits (September 2001)

How you do the movements of T’ai Chi Chih is all important. Not for academic reasons or to please the teacher, but because the amount of benefit you get from practice depends on the way you move. If you are using muscles to move your arms, while, at the same time, shuffling your legs, you will not get full benefit. All important is having you move from the center, the T’an T’ien, with no effort from the shoulders or the arms. It is easy for the teacher to tell if the student is moving to the maximum of his or her capacity. If the feeling is floating and flowing, the movements are being done correctly. Flowing effortlessly from the center, while effortlessly pushing the arms thru very heavy air, is the desired method and the one that brings results.

Watching a student is not like putting him thru an exam, to be graded by what he or she has written on paper. The great results felt from proper practice cannot be put into words. Sages of India equate the Chi with Consciousness itself, and, when the Chi (prana) leaves the body, you are dead. Therefore, causing the Chi to flow, while balancing the Yin Chi and the Yang Chi, will, in the minds of the Chinese wise men, bring longer life and better health. T’ai Chi Chih students also write that it changes their lives. We have seen how favorably it affects hardened criminals in prisons, and we have had reports of great benefits for those suffering from Osteoporosis and Migraine Headaches, for which medicine has no relief. All this depends on the student doing the movements well. It is hard to get the idea of effort out of students’ minds, and it is only natural, in the beginning, for the student to feel the harder he or she tries, the better will be the results. But that’s all wrong! Softly and effortlessly is the correct way. And, of course, the student must do correct yinning and yanging, as well as accenting one side or the other when called for.

On my latest Video-tape, the practice session is being led by Suni McHenry, followed by the other three teachers, in a stifling studio with no air coming into the room; yet it all appears effortless and joyous. Following the teachers on this practice session, strive for the feeling of serenity that comes from doing the form properly. Don’t do it well to please me but to please you.