Finding Stability & Security

During this pandemic I have been listening to Master Waysun Liao of TaiChiTaoTV. While he is not a T’ai Chi Chih teacher, he is a Taoist master and everything he speaks of relates to our TCC practice. He says it does not matter what form we do. There are many ways of going up a mountain. The important thing is that we get to the top. 

He talks about how T’ai Chi is an art form. Like any art we must work to perfect it. An artist adjusts line, color, shape, tone, always thinking about every detail, to make a masterpiece. T’ai Chi is a moving art. All the details of moving and flowing and where we put our arms and hands and feet and how we move from our center and soften and drop our shoulders, all contribute to making our practice a work of art. We constantly work on improving because as we improve, we feel the Chi more deeply. When we feel the Chi more deeply, we experience the benefits. We don’t have to think about what they are. They just come. We are never done working on the quality of our practice. It is the concentration and focus of our efforts to perfect this art that becomes our meditation.

One detail I have been attending to in my practice is the idea of an axle, stable in the center of the circle while the wheel moves around it. When everything is moving that is not T’ai Chi. There must be some point that is grounded, stable, still while other points move. Think about your practice and where that stability comes in. When we do the first variation of Pulling Taffy (Anchor), the back foot is your anchor. It stays down solidly while everything else is moving, until you lift it and let the other foot become the anchor. I love that feeling of the stable anchor holding me down as everything else moves. The same holds true with Six Healing Sounds. One foot stays back and stays down while the other foot and arms are moving forward. All front-to-back and side-to-side movements employ the same principle of one foot being solid or one leg being straight while the other bends. 

Experiencing the feeling of an axle in the midst of the movements, knowing that I possess a solid, grounding place to return to within me gives me a sense of security in this time of great insecurity. What a gift to learn that that power resides in me. The more I perfect the details of this beautiful moving art form the more benefits I receive.