What is the Goal?

How often have we ended up somewhere different than where we thought we wanted to finish. One thing amazing about Justin (and there were many) was how clear he was about the T’ai Chi Chih movements. He had an inner sense and knowing about what was important about TCC, and the part it played in our lives and the spiritual growth of life in general. It was not just a sense of what it would do in his life (as it did so much), but rather that it was an integral part of everything else. To this end he continually made the statement, “TCC has so much to offer if we don’t change it.” It is interesting to me that in spite of hearing this, or hearing it, that many people do change the movements in subtle ways. The goal is to do the movements as Justin told us and showed us, but somehow when it comes to doing it, we miss things. And if we are a TCC teacher; we then share those changes.

One of the principles of TCC is balance. What we do on one side of the body, we do on the other side. On the movements where we move forward and backward, we move into a bent knee going forward, and we straighten the back knee, keeping the back foot parallel to the ground and lifting the heel only a slight amount. We do this nine times and close that side. Then we move to the other side and do the same. It seems like a simple move and it is. I think many of you would agree with me. Recently, I saw a video of a TCC teacher doing the movements. I was startled to see that the teacher started out by putting the left leg forward slightly bent and then shifted the weight forward by further bending rather than gradually straightening the back knee. By doing this the teacher ended up with two bent knees, making both knees yang. This goes against the principle of balance; it changes the movement. Instead of creating strength, the teacher will create weakness. And the teacher will share this erroneous movement, thus spreading weakness rather than strength.

Justin has left us many ways to check our movements. He left us video recordings on DVDs (now streaming), books and CDs so that what we pass on will greatly benefit us and our students. We have been gifted with TCC, Seijaku and Fast Track, which (when done correctly) carry the possibility of great healing and strength for the practitioner. It is up to each of us to do the movements as Justin asked. The movements truly are a healing gift if done correctly. With time and practice the movements will begin to share many secrets with us that go beyond the physical and take us to our goal of learning to love and share the Chi.