The “Joy” in Joy Thru Movement

Joy is “the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something good or satisfying,” says the Random House Dictionary. So, if T’ai Chi Chih is considered Joy Thru Movement, why do we always look so depressed or devoid of emotion when doing it? This leads to the question, how should we look? Should we have smiles plastered on our faces? Should we have to think about how we look? When I see a group of people doing TCC the look on their faces is one of deep reflection, a relaxation of the facial muscles, quietness. This is good, right?

Joy is an emotion as individual to each of us as our fingerprints. What brings joy to one person may be of no interest to another. For me the “joy” in TCC practice manifests in several ways. I relish and take great joy in the ah-ha moments when a new understanding unfolds during practice. I bask in the delight of what I feel, physically and emotionally, at the end of a practice. Occasionally strong emotions, often expressed by tears, can surface during a practice but usually an involuntary smile accompanies the tears coupled with a sense of lightness, or joy. (Go figure.) These are what might be called surface joys. They are immediately recognizable.

At the annual teacher’s conference this year we sat in silence at the end of each practice. I think this has real value. Not only from the standpoint of what is happening energy wise, but in being still with our own thoughts we can better recognize emotions and consciously recognize what we are experiencing. If we don’t take time to sit for a few minutes we immediately jump right back into habituated thought patterns. We may not discover how we feel. Oops, did we miss an opportunity to feel warm and fuzzy all over? Or, was it much more. Did we miss recognizing how it feels to experience an all-encompassing love, without judgment, emanating from us, in us, around us? 

Is this the “joy” in Joy Thru Movement? Touching that core of our being and knowing, even if only for a glimpse, our true nature. The more we connect to the real essence of who we are the more we understand our path. The joy comes from freeing ourselves, briefly each practice, of our habit energies, our wants and desires, our jealously, our shame, or whatever we carry the keeps us from being truly happy. The joy is a lightness in our Being, a smile in our hearts that may or may not spread to our faces. So look grumpy all you want during practice, I know the joy is bubbling inside.