Uncertain Certainties

I have been practicing T’ai Chi Chih (TCC) for 26 years. If there is anything I have learned in that time it is that I seem to know less and less. So many of the certainties I held sacred seem to have become uncertain. What I used to believe was the absolute truth seems often not true at all. This has made a profound impact on some areas of my life including my TCC practice.

This may seem like a very small detail, but it is making a huge change in my practice and in how I perceive the energy. For the last year I have been struggling with trying to ground energy. I seem to have been experiencing way too much energy in life and in my TCC practice. When Kim asked us to write about whether we drop our hands between movements, it got me thinking and experimenting. I know other teachers do this, but I am now just coming around.

I have always emphasized to my students the importance of holding the hands parallel to the floor after a movement as if balancing them on two imaginary balls of energy at our sides. I remember Justin telling us that. To me it was one of those sacred rules one cannot break. However, I have been working on dropping my hands after a brief balance on those balls and letting the energy drain down from my fingertips. It feels really good. It releases the tension in my wrists and the energy coursing through me after a movement. It does not detract from the flow of the next movement at all, as I always assumed it would. Rather it feels like a lovely rest before I begin moving that Chi again.

I think that opening up to this “new” idea is helping me ground the energy more. And it has also opened up my mind and heart to accept that perhaps there are a lot of assumptions I make in life that may simply not be true. Maybe, after all these 26 years, I am actually learning more as I let go of what I thought I knew.