One Degree of Separation – Or Six Degrees?

In talking with a T’ai Chi Chih teacher friend recently, I came to clearly understand a fundamental choice or position that we all have to make as teachers and students of TCC. This teacher believes that it’s inevitable that T’ai Chi Chih, one day, will morph into something that doesn’t really resemble Justin Stone’s TCC. His analogy went something like this: take an original to the Xerox machine and make a copy. Then make a copy from that copy and another from that copy and so on. By the tenth generation of copies what you see will only faintly resemble the original. It’s just the way it is, he said. But I disagree about the inevitable outcome because of one important reason: We have a great DVD of Justin Stone doing TCC. No one need ever be more than one generation removed from Source. Ever. Imagine having a video recording of the Buddha teaching meditation under the Bodhi tree. It’s as simple and clear as that.

A 15-year veteran teacher phoned GKP recently to order photo texts and I asked her why she never ordered the DVD. She said she’d never seen it so she couldn’t recommend it to her students. I gently suggested that she might want to check it out. Now that she has, she orders it for her students.

RE-NAMING THE MOVEMENTS & PRACTICE?

When referring to the movements while teaching or as a student, please retain the original full and proper names. Please don’t say “Wrist Circles” when it’s really “Pulling Taffy, Variation Two, Wrist Circles.” Please don’t say “The Daughters” when it’s “Daughter On The Mountaintop” and “Daughter In The Valley.” Please don’t say that TCC consists of 20 movements when it really consists of 19 movements and one pose. Why? Because before you know it, twenty years down the road, no one will recall the proper names or how you really do them, and perhaps someone will come along and call the movements T’ai Chi Chop. When we don’t act from the highest integrity with intention, we’re usually on a slippery slope in the wrong direction.

We all know what problems arise when T’ai Chi Chih isn’t referred to as T’ai Chi Chih in the press. The studies out of UCLA using T’ai Chi Chih can’t seem to get it right and when the press breaks (even more than it has) it’s not going to do the teachers and practitioners of TCC any good. Please do not drop the “Chih” when speaking or writing about TCC.

By KG, Albuquerque, NM

Pyramid Poems

soft

I am

retreating

into myself

in circles

flowing

Chi

– Sheryl Adair

sweet

softness

T’ai Chi Chih

what do you bring

beloved

truth and

love

– Robert Montes de Oca

joy

is here

in my heart

the universe

is also

inside

me

– Judy Hendricks

cars

racing

outside class

yet T’ai Chi Chih

quietness

louder

still

– Marilyn Irwin

do

it now

for it to

be accomplished

or it will

never

be

– Hugh Mitten

see

the bird

in the tree

I am too loud

there he goes

goodbye

gone

– Keith S.

my

soul is

full of joy

warmth, well-being

continue

to heal

soar

– Cathie Buschau

trees

blowing

sun shining

Chi flowing through

connecting

us as

one

– Glen Adsit

love

justin

T’ai Chi Chih

one and the same

showing the

way to

joy

– Dora Derzon

peace

balance

T’ai Chi Chih

becoming more

another

person

now

– Nancy Gimble-Little