Teacher & Students Collaborate

Does freedom exist within the T’ai Chi Chih practice? Pondering this question, I first thought, No! The movements are so well designed that there’s not much room for freedom within them. We can only hope to perform them as correctly as possible in order to receive the maximum benefits. Digging a little more deeply and opening up a discussion with my students, I was led down a variety of paths to affirmative conclusions.

This beautiful practice frees us from the always-thinking, chattering-monkey mind. As we sink into the movements, the consuming thoughts that usually monopolize our attention quiet down. We feel the stillness, the essence of the practice. TCC practice teaches us freedom from effort as we discover wu-wei – the effort of no-effort. Through these simple movements, we find the freely flowing energy to heal ourselves from suffering on many levels of the mind/body continuum.

Inmates of Folsom Prison report that they feel free from their oppressive circumstances only in their TCC classes and practice. Aren’t we all, in a sense, prisoners incarcerated by our habits, by our thoughts, by our own bodies and minds? Doing TCC frees us from the jailhouse of our habitual selves, for over time we learn to surrender the impediments to touching the deepest aspects of who we are. From that freedom, being at peace with ourselves, we can relate to the world in which we live – with love.