Evolution Through Chi (November 2017)

After 30 years of teaching T’ai Chi Chih, I am experiencing a deeper appreciation of Justin Stone’s approach to “Evolution Through Chi.” I still have a few print copies of the 1991 booklet of the 1990 TCC Teacher Conference lecture, transcribed by Carolyn Shaw and put into booklet form by Doug Shilson.

I have always approached my TCC practice and teaching with as much teh as possible, including gratefully accepting movement corrections over the years. I am still trying to incorporate the many personal suggestions made by Justin.

But after four years of teaching at a nursing home, I do not focus on correcting students doing their very best to follow the movements. I feel more deeply attuned to Justin’s final words in the “Evolution through Chi” presentation. My experiences increasingly bear witness to Justin’s claim that teaching TCC is an important way for us to serve as “Divine Agents of evolution.”

I feel that my most important “service to mankind” right here, right now, is to allow the TCC movements to support the evolution these residents are undergoing in the final years or months of their lives.

Many of them are too demented to communicate with others at any significant level. It touches my heart more deeply than I can express when I see the eyes of stroke survivors and people with Alzheimer’s begin to shine as they feel enhanced Chi circulation. As I and their fellow residents move in unison around them, they begin to move any way they can in harmony with us. Even if only one arm is moving, I assure them that they are moving perfectly. Even if only their eyes are following us, I smile and tell them I can see they are doing TCC in their minds.

Participants do not judge the correctness of their own movements or the movements of those around them. They seem to have compassion for their unresponsive limbs, using an unaffected limb to assist the one that is damaged. Some residents who are barely able to lift their heads become more alert and communicative, to the delight of family members and staff.

I drive 60 miles round trip to teach two nursing home classes. I try to make that drive part of my TCC practice, anticipating and then reliving the profound benefits we all receive from achieving “Joy Through Movement.”