Rocking Motion Through Around The Platter Variation: A Retreat Experience

Rocking Motion

As the hands descend down the front of the body (not wider than the width of the body), try allowing the hands to be at a 45-degree angle to the forearm. If the hands are too cocked, the Chi is blocked in the meridian channels; it is too limp and there is no substance. Then, harmonizing with the Chi, let go in the wrists completely when the hands are just in front of the body. At this point, feel the fingers pointing down, connecting to the ground. This lasts a brief moment. Find the “something” – the fingers are alive. Throughout the movement, feel the ring of light radiating up from your T’an T’ien. Feel the rocking going on inside the T’an T’ien. Feel the heels, arches, balls of the feet and back again.

Bird Flaps Its Wings

Always feel the Chi between the hands first, before beginning the movement. Let your knees follow your baby toe as they bend. The hands come around the top, circling around the approximate size of an 8 ½ x 11-inch piece of paper. The second circle stops at the top when the palms of the hand are parallel to the floor, allowing hands to come directly back together. Let the hands come together as if having the most ecstatic love affair: Chi coming to Chi equals JOY! Ask yourself: What do you feel in the connection between the hands? What do you feel in the circle? The T’ai Chi Chih movements are alive. It is a living discipline!

Around The Platter

Did the T’an T’ien initiate moving forward or did something else – like the chest, the hip, the shoulders? This awareness of the T’an T’ien moving first to start the movement helps tremendously in keeping the focus there throughout. Knowing whether the T’an T’ien initiated the movement can be felt! Pay attention to the ball of the back foot – placing the attention in the ball helps encourage the heel not to come up too high. Let the thumbs be at the same level as the hands. Notice what happens to the attention if the thumbs have dropped. (Has the attention dropped as well?) Note the position of the hands. Let the hands begin with a slight angle upward, lifted up by the Chi. Feel the Chi more strongly as the hands move intentionally through it. In flowing forward with the right foot extended, the right hand curves around the circle and the left hand points slightly into the right hand. At the “far point” (where the weight is shifted as far forward as it is meant to and the hands are farthest from the body), the hands are equal and never more than an inch apart the entire time. Coming back around the circle, the left hand curves around the outside of the circle and the right hand fingers point ever-so-slightly into it. The hands are at the level of the breastbone. Be aware of them floating higher by accident – the feeling of inner strength and groundedness will not be as strong. The circle you are tracing is the entire universe, a universe that is right here in your body. It’s not happening out there!. The Chi is well-distributed throughout the limbs.

Around The Platter – Variation

It is most important to remember that this movement is about a circle within a circle! If the larger circle is a universe, then out of that universe comes you. You are a universe unto yourself. Then you dissolve back into the universe and rest. Justin takes a “running start.” His hands come up to his breastbone, then the hands move a couple inches backwards before moving in the direction they are meant to. Try this; see what happens to the strength and energy of the movement. Notice carefully: what does it feel like to pick up the ball? What does it feel like to release the ball? What does it feel like when you dissolve back into all of life but then not disappear?! Bending the knees does a special thing inside the body – the energy can flow up through the bottoms of the feet all through the body. TCC is the great leveler: it teaches us that we are all great. Comment from a participant, “With this movement I feel I don’t have to worry. Everything will come back again. It may not be in the form I think, but everything that is mine will come to me.”