Practicing the TCC Form Again for the First Time

Thanks to the editor of the Vital Force, Noel Altman, for putting me in touch with some of the TCC teachers who have had total knee replacements. It was particularly helpful to communicate with Bitsy LeBlanc, who was at that time in rehabilitation following bilateral knee replacements. She was already resuming her TCC practice and even close to teaching classes again.

In my case I chose to have them both replaced at the same time. My physician and I both preferred it that way, although it may not be appropriate for everyone considering this operation.

My questions to Bitsy were endless. Among other things, I was concerned about whether the chi could still find its pathway to flow freely following surgical trauma or is it secondarily blocked? Bitsy assured me, “no problem.” The flow of the chi was unchanged for her.

Now I must tell you . . . six months after surgery, it is like I [was] practicing the TCC form again for the first time. I [was] just beginning to experience what it means to have “soft” knees. I could never trust my knees to steady me pre-operatively, even with my un-loading braces. Also, I never knew when it was really going to hurt, so I was tentatively surrendered to softness as I moved.

Justin asks, “does the body flow from the T’an T’ien, not from movement of the shoulders, nor from the body leaning backward to disguise the fact that the knees do not bend and sink down on the backward movement?” Ed speaks about alignment of the whole body over the “sweet” spot in the soles of the feet, taking the knee-bend even just a half inch further as you move forward and back. I was only starting to experience that at [the] Sedona [retreat] in April [2002] and, I can tell you it . . . made a world of difference in my practice to start “working” on that.

So, I am very grateful for the advances in modern surgery for giving me back the strength in my knees. I am also grateful for the opportunity to keep learning the TCC discipline “again for the first time.” Isn’t that what it is all about, anyway?