Why I Move Slowly

A proviso: What follows is what I currently perceive during my T’ai Chi Chih practice. It may not come close to what you experience, and it may not be where I’ll be in a couple of years. But for now, it’s my here and now.

There seems to be four stages of playing with Chi as we do in TCC. Stage 1: Go through it. When we first start TCC, we’re learning the movements. I don’t know about you, but I was like, “Hey, look at me go. Look how powerfully I can do these movements. I can push out. I can pull back.” Dang, I’m fast. Around the Platter? My instructor is only spinning that record at 33 1/3 RPM and I’m clocking in at least 78 RPM. What’s taking her so long? (A little side note: My instructor and mentor is Marie Dotts, and boy, am I lucky to have found her.) What is happening with Chi in this stage? We’re moving so fast, with so much muscle. The Chi is all around us, but we’re moving right through it.

With a good instructor who will guide us into slowing down and being aware of what Chi is doing around us, we enter Stage 2: Play in it. As we slow down, we become more aware of Chi. Why is that? What does slowing down have to do with anything? Let’s think about this. If you’re trying to get a drink of water out of a stream, you dip your hand into the stream, and slowly bring the water up to your lips. That’s a drink. What happens if you plunge your hand into the water and rush it back up to your mouth? You probably end up splashing the water around. And if you happen to capture some water, you end up flinging it away before your hand gets to your mouth. If going fast does that to water, what is it doing to the Chi?

Slowing down, being aware of what Chi is doing around us, taking time to play within the Chi, slowing down more … and what happens? Well, I’ll be darned, we’re bringing Chi to us. Stage 3: Collect it. Again, by moving even slower. Why? Ever try to collect smoke? As you move your hand towards it, you invariably push it away. Bringing it back to you? Yeah, right! But you can do it if you move steadily and slowly, and even more slowly. Your hand and arm muscles are barely in play. The gathering and movement of the smoke itself dictates what your hand will be doing. And that’s just trying to collect smoke. Smoke may be more nebulous than water, but smoke is still a physical thing. Is Chi a physical thing? Yes and no. (But that’s for another time and place.) For now, let’s just say Chi is more ephemeral than smoke. We gather Chi when our movements are no longer being controlled by our muscles. We float and Chi is moving us. Dancing with Chi. It’s pretty cool.

So, we’ve collected Chi, played with it and danced with it. What now? If everything works out, we can move into Stage 4: Communicate with it. It gets interesting when you talk to your tan t’ien and it responds. How do you communicate with your Chi? How do you communicate with another person? You talk. You vibrate sound with your throat muscle movements, and the other person interprets the patterns as communication. How do we communicate with Chi? That’s what TCC movements do. They set up a pattern to which the Chi responds. But it has to be at the pattern resonating with Chi (don’t worry, Chi will guide us). If we relax and don’t bring our mighty muscles into play, but instead let Chi move us, we’ll find the proper pattern. Once we’re floating in the pattern, it’s: “Hello there. I feel you.”