You’re in My Spot

We all remember Justin telling his experience going to an empty cafeteria to wait for his meeting and shortly afterward being told by an approaching diner that he was in her spot. Believe me, this exact scenario plays out every day, somewhere. Where I go to give my classes, there is this rather large room where all the T’ai Chi Chih (TCC), yoga, and Pilates classes take place. The room comfortably fits my sometimes 35 regular students. Everyone has their “spot” where they predictably stand, barring new people coming in first and not knowing.

My students are nice (unlike the Pilates students who stampede the room, sometimes when we are just finishing up), so I’ll tell the story of a student who one day came in a little late and had to stand on the other side of the room. She came up to me afterwards to tell me that the energy on that side (or the energy of her immediate neighbors) was different. She couldn’t say just how different, whether positive or negative, less or more, just different. I can definitely feel collective Chi during a class. I never imagined it could be piecemeal, but there you have it.

I trusted her impression not just because she’s been coming for several years (and standing in the same spot), and not just because I’m impressed that she walked the Camino de Santiago, but also because she has a master’s degree that included a class called Gestalt in which an exercise had half the individuals standing on one side of the room blindfolded and being asked to pace forward and stop when they felt the energy (aura?) of the person on the other side of the room. Susanne said sometimes a person’s energy projected several feet in front of them; others just a foot, others more or less. Everyone had at least some dimension of energy around them.

I’m glad she was late for that class so I could learn that collective Chi is made up of variable individual components, confirming Gestalt as an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts, or, like the book says, confirming that the attributes of the whole are not deducible from analysis of the parts in isolation. We are sharing the Chi whether a deliberate gesture or not! So, share the Chi and be sure to claim your spot!