To Drop or Not to Drop: Is that a question?

As I teach T’ai Chi Chih (TCC), I sometimes find myself headed down a rabbit hole trying to describe my practice versus just doing the practice. Ultimately being mindful of the words is not being mindful of the practice. It’s the difference between telling someone (including myself) about a sandwich versus eating a sandwich. I play with words but only because I find them one of the few tools I have for creating fine distinctions that make a difference.

To drop or not? Think about one of the guiding principles “smoothness and continuity.” Smoothness is not a principle, nor is continuity. Smoothness and continuity is a principle, though.

How do you hold that principle and how do you embody it? Justin did not approve run-on practices where one movement flowed seamlessly into the next until the end. But then how does “continuous” come into play — and is that part of a question for your practice? If you come to an abrupt stop at the end of each iteration, how does that embody smoothness? This is a nice puzzle Justin left us to explore.

Can you hold your mindfulness for the whole practice — perceiving each part (even the word “part” tries to make it a separate well-defined chunk) as a part of the smoothness and continuity of the complete practice?

As teachers, we break whole things down into chunks that we think people can easily absorb. It’s the student’s job to put it together into a seamless whole.

The same is true for “to drop or not to drop.” If you treat a hand-drop as an inclusive part of the overall practice and movement and maintain mind space for it as part of the practice, you will include it in the smoothness and continuity of the practice. You maintain the spirit of TCC.

If you treat the hand-drop as a time out — a get coffee or finish the crossword puzzle kind of interruption — then you may have entirely missed the opportunity that TCC practice offers.

To drop or not to drop is not a question, it’s matter of mindfulness and embracing the spirit of TCC. As an experiment, do a few movements in your first practice, then maintain the spirit and go about your business until you notice the spirit wandering. Then stop and do the next few to get a feeling of having TCC being continuous in your spirit even though it looks like separate chunks to the outside world. It would be great to hear from people who explore this.