TCC: Symbolic Gestures of Personal Meaning

In my many years of learning, teaching and refining T’ai Chi Chih it has become obvious to me that the form is a bridge between the visible and invisible worlds, matter and spirit, words and silence, and most certainly a direct way to experience Reality. I would like to share insights from my own experience relative to the personal meaning I find in some of the TCC forms.

In the rest position, integration of active and still chi is allowed. We flow between form and emptiness in all the movements.

Around the Platter begins the circular dance of T’ai Chi Chih. We all may know intellectually that circularity creates more chi flow. An outstanding experiment to deepen your experience of that truth is to change the size of your circles – from quite small to large – and feel the difference in energy. Remember always to relax and move softly, slowly and smoothly without ambition. In Variation of Around the Platter, the ball represents my conscious intention which I then offer to the world, or I hold a loving thought of someone and send it to them as I release the ball. I like to be consciously creative and enhance the form with my own ideas.

Bass Drum is so simple and powerful, I visualize chi dancing between the palms. I allow life to be Itself in the movements, it is the art of arts – for me, letting go of wanting to control life. All of the movements are states of mind.

Daughter on the Mountain Top has always been one of my favorites. The daughter – the receptive feminine within us all; the mountain top – moments of grace which occur spontaneously during practice (and LIFE!). I like to be relaxed and alert, like a cat.

Daughter in the Valley helps me to trust the intuitive and be compassionate to the doubts. To be an artist of life itself…making the ordinary extraordinary…when we practice daily.

Carry the Ball is the first movement going sideways and that always changes my experience of the chi rather dramatically. I feel I am drawing the T’ai Chi circle continually in this form.

In Light at the Top of the Head, the flame expands, symbolic of rising above conceptual living to enlarge limited views, then that vision is brought back into life, for wholeness. The Light at the Temples is the place of worship. In this movement we can move beyond thought and enter the true stream of spiritual life.

Passing Clouds is another favorite of mine. Several years ago a student named Barbara was healed of 35 years of insomnia by doing Passing Clouds for 10 minutes prior to sleep.

Relaxation and circularity are primary here (move from the waist) and the awareness that clouds symbolize the law of form: endless change.

Six Healing Sounds are vital and tension-releasing, done with gusto and fluidity. As both the Healing Sounds and Joyous Breath strongly stimulate chi, I rest longer than usual to allow balance to re-occur. Ending with Cosmic Consciousness Pose integrates the stimulated chi and allows chi-wisdom to nourish the body deep in the marrow of the bones. I think stillness is the highest state of vibration and the quickest way to access wisdom. Checkpoints: Are my shoulders relaxed? Is my breathing natural? Am I gazing inwardly?

My essential reminder is: practice, enjoy, relax, ground. We are perfect in essence, but it takes time, infinite time, to bring this perfection into form. Our T’ai Chi Chih practice is our supreme opportunity to connect to the Source daily. My whole approach to TCC is to still the surface mind so that natural, spontaneous wisdom can shine forth in its simplicity and guide us. This journey of life and TCC always begins NOW…and I wish you only success in your efforts to cultivate chi.

Blessings,

– Richard Brier
Mill Valley, CA