TCC Meets the Dancing Letters

Working with T’ai Chi Chih teacher Marie Dotts on Zoom, she talked about trusting the life force and letting the Chi guide us. If I truly practice the effort of no effort, I let TCC do me, instead of me doing TCC. This added a whole new dimension to my practice. Rather than focusing on doing the movements, I focused more on having the movements guide me, trusting that guidance and being in the moment, rather than doing every movement correctly.

This reminded me of workshops I teach on the “Hebrew Letter Movements” where I tell students to focus on becoming the letter, instead of doing the letter movement. W h i l e r e a d i n g a b o o k, w e d o n ’t f o c u s o n e v e r y l e t t e r, but rather flow with the story. We flow with the letters while moving and creating words.

Some 25 years ago, I heard about Yehudit Goldfarb, a TCC teacher teaching “Hebrew Letter Movements for Healing & Renewal” in Berkeley, California. I was studying Kabbalah at the time, had studied dance most of my life, and was learning T’ai Chi Ch’uan. I invited Yehudit to Amsterdam, and she graciously taught me. Later I took classes with her in Berkeley and Israel.

A note by Yehudit appeared in The Vital Force from July 1990: “According to the Jewish mystical tradition, the Hebrew letters are the building blocks of the universe. Each letter is a particular channel for connecting the Infinite with the finite: within its shape spiritual light and life force exist in a state of contraction which allows for the transformation of energy into matter.”

I learned about TCC in 1991 while spending a year in Siesta Key, Florida. Walking on the beach at sunset was (and is) a delicious ritual. One evening, I saw a small group doing T’ai Chi-like movements. It was my first encounter with TCC and the beginning of a lifelong friendship with Diana Daffner, who was teaching that night. During many visits to Siesta Key in the years that followed, I fell in love with TCC. I learned it by following along with Diana.

We talked about accreditation many times, but I never found the right time. Exactly 30 years later, I am preparing for it. One blessing of this pandemic is the expansion of a virtual global village. I found Leslie Nell in the U.K. who welcomed me to her Zoom lessons, and I feel blessed to have studied with her this the past year, together with my dear friend Orly.

The Chi & Me

According to the Jewish mystical tradition, the Hebrew letters are channels for creative power. The letters were the tools of the Creator. While moving to the letters, or the letters moving us, our body becomes a channel of energy between heaven and earth. Through this channel, the creative power can flow freely. While moving through the 19 movements of TCC we connect to that same creative power, but we call it the Life Force or Chi.

The principles of TCC are at the base of “T h e D a n c i n g L e t t e r s.” Whether the Chi or the letters move us, we are in the same flow. This is the flow when we are present with what is, the flow that teaches us to trust the guidance. May the Chi guide us, while we dance the dance of Life.