Free From The Inside Out

At a recent high school reunion, a classmate reminded me of a line I used in my commencement speech: “We stand today at the threshold of our minds.” I was leaving home for college, anything was possible, and I was crossing the threshold into exciting realms of knowledge that I had barely heard of. Freedom was mine. Little did I know that I would become a prisoner of my own intellect. After teaching English for years, I came to live almost entirely in my head. Somehow, I recognized at my first introduction to T’ai Chi Chih that TCC could open a door to a new way of being alive.

During an intensive and teacher training, my instructors (especially Athene Mantle) told me again and again to “Stop thinking. Start feeling.” It took many months of practice before this advice seeped into my soul. Slowly, the essence of the movements became part of my muscle memory. I did not have to think about moving: I simply surrendered to the flow of the Chi.

While I am in the flow, my mind shuts off. Problems and concerns fall away. I am free to simply be. I feel my muscles move, my breath deepen, the blood pump from my heart, the Chi circulate and balance; I am beyond thought. I don’t concentrate on the T’an T’ien; I just feel it sway back and forth as I yin and yang. I feel one with the movement of the universe. From the inside out, I am free.