“Second Saturday” Practices

During the September teacher practice with our Guide, Marie Dotts, she focused on really feeling our practice. When she started TCC, she explained, her practice was mechanical, but now it’s “all feel.” She described a rippling pulse of energy with the waist directing everything and nothing being done by the upper body.

She suggested we open the hands, not let them curl, and inhabit the body — be there, not hovering above. Sometimes we get ahead of ourselves; her reminder to bring ourselves, “inward, down, and back” feels freeing, like coming home to myself. “Feel the breath expand the belly in a ripple; let the breath carry your awareness down into the belly, into the still point, and rest there.” It can feel like effort at first, she says, then effortless awareness. “We realize it’s us; we don’t make anything happen; it is already there.”

She focuses on the tan t‘ien with students — first showing an incorrect weight shift, leaning while coming back. And then she does it again, putting a hand on her belly and showing how her hand pushes the center back, allowing the tan t‘ien to lead, the hips hinging slightly as the weight arrives balanced in the back foot. We used this focus on the tan t’ien throughout the practice. Afterwards, teachers reported that the tan t’ien moving back provided a whole body feel; it helped some not think. Someone shared that she felt as if her cells were all alive.

During the October session, Marie talked about finding a relaxed stance where the pelvis is level. This involves relaxing the lower back (and I would add, the abdomen). Marie feels her tailbone drop. Every joint has to adjust; every joint is expressing the energy, she says.

The pelvic bowl is level while moving, as well, she suggests. The instant you lead with anything other than your tan t‘ien, you change or block the flow. In the forward shift (expansion), people sometimes lead with the shoulders. But a bigger issue she sees is a locked psoas muscle (aka hip flexor), which connects the lower back to the leg on each side. When the psoas doesn’t open, this stops the complete weight shift and people finish with overbending the front knee instead. In the back shift, students also often lead with the shoulders or shift onto a straight back leg, which causes them to lean back. She showed us how when the tan t‘ien leads, the shoulders line up over the point of the hips and the weight is even in the back foot.

To help beginners, she uses an exercise she calls “Kate Winslet on the Titanic and the roly-poly.” Going forward in the front weight shift, she has people open their arms wide and open/arch the belly forward like Kate Winslet in the movie, Titanic (“don’t hold back.” Marie says), and coming back, curling up into themselves. Sometimes what feels like an exaggeration helps students to get fully over their feet.

“Even in the ever-changing movement, there is the stillness of the balance. Within expansion and contraction, the deep center is balanced and unchanging.” Thank you, Marie, for these powerful sessions. The Guide’s practice for accredited TCC teachers is the second Saturday of each month on Zoom. (Meeting ID is 813 8264 0729 and passcode is Connect.)