Playing With, Exploring, Knowledge of TCC

T’ai Chi Chih: I love the name of our discipline. T’ai Chi (“Supreme Ultimate”) immediately puts me in the frame of mind of dealing with something so much larger than myself. The Chih (“Knowledge of”) says that there is something to be learned about this Supreme Ultimate. For some of us, this seems too much. How in the world are we to learn what is necessary for us to know about TCC? First: Don’t worry, relax. This is a user-friendly discipline.

Second: This is good for us. This disciple saves lives. My first TCC teacher, Helen Brungardt Pope, learned it from Justin Stone, the originator. It saved her life. She learned it because she was dying. She offered it to us, her students, so that we could stay healthy as we learned about our spiritual life. We moved beyond our apprehensions and signed up for her class. Every week I watched other students who moved smoothly. I seemed to be the only one with two left feet. No one said, hey you with the two left feet, but I was sure they were thinking it. I wondered, how could this discipline achieve all that the book said it could: heighten energy; promote serenity, health and longevity; improve balance and flexibility; help with weight and blood-pressure control; and expand creativity and awareness?

Third: The discipline is best learned in a class, from a accredited teacher. Trevor Leggett writes in A Second Zen Reader that, “He or She who would have a lion’s cub must walk into the lion’s den.”

Later as I was learning the movements, I came under the watchful eye of Mr. Stone, my second teacher. Justin said I had a good teacher, but I sure hadn’t done a very good job of learning TCC. Even at that stage, though, I was getting benefits. My mind was quiet, even though my body had a mind of its own. Fourth: All is not as it seems. This discipline has a level that goes beyond thinking. It has a feeling component.

Feeling what? The Chi, of course! Wow, even though I attended all my classes, I had somehow missed the lesson about feeling the Chi. Now I was ready to really learn the movements from a deeper perspective—a new beginning to learn how to love and share the Chi.