Smiles & Warm Greetings

As a new teacher I have had the good fortune to be asked to take on both classes for beginners and a few advanced classes in which the students have been together for many years. This blend of new and seasoned students has been a wonderful experience. It has given me the opportunity to hear about, and see, the benefits of T’ai Chi Chih for both beginning and experienced students.

For new students, TCC is mainly a physical activity because they are distracted, having to concentrate on how they are moving as they learn. Benefits are mainly physical, such as improved balance and flowing from the center. Over time the movements become committed to muscle memory and the students are able to deepen their experience of TCC as a moving meditation. Through being focused internally, in the present moment, students share that they are able to let go of the busy-ness of life and relax in a profound way. Instead of experiencing energy as nervous and scattered, the energy stimulated through TCC becomes empowering and focused.

A student came up to me after a class with a big smile on her face and said, “Today is the one year anniversary of being in this class, and TCC has changed my life!” I had watched her blossom as a student and already knew that TCC had made a difference for her. She has a physical condition that is marked by generalized pain in the body. TCC benefited her physically as well as emotionally and socially. In just two years as a teacher, I have had several students make similar comments.

Social aspects of TCC classes grow more important over time, and are often overlooked when we talk about benefits. As a class that has been together for years gathers, there are lots of smiles and warm greetings. There is an energetic buzz in the room as students catch up with each other. Beginning the practice sometimes feels like an interruption, but it is, of course, why we have come together. As teachers we need to remember that Justin’s direction to focus on moving, rather than on talking about moving, is about our teaching.Time spent by students connecting with one another is not mere “talk,” but provides the significant benefit of connection to something bigger than ourselves.

Joseph Campbell told Bill Moyers that he does not know how anyone gets through life without an “invisible means of support.” Many (sometimes I believe most) of our new students come to class without any knowledge of meditation, much less the moving meditation that is TCC. The practice is spiritual, but not religious, and does not prescribe any particular path. Experiencing the mental focus and moving meditation of the practice and sitting quietly afterwards, however, allows an individual to follow his or her own path by encouraging the exploration and experience of “Other,” whatever that is for them. My experience of long-time TCC students and teachers is that they are very spiritual people who have a strong “invisible means of support.”

For me, the benefits of TCC were immediate and profound. From learning the first halting movements, I felt that I had found the home I had been seeking for a long time. And I love sharing that possibility with my students.