Writing
“T’ai Chi Chih will teach you T’ai Chi Chih,” Justin Stone, the originator of T’ai Chi Chih, often remarked. As my own T’ai Chi Chih practice continues to unfold and teach me, these writings, originally published in the two T’ai Chi Chih community periodicals The Vital Force and the T’ai Chi Chih News, reflect on my experience with different aspects of this mindfulness moving meditation. While Justin also commented, “The depths of the practice may never be fully plumbed,” how enriching to be moved to express, in whatever creative form specific to the individual, one’s unfolding from the inside out, moment by moment. While no particular effect is guaranteed, T’ai Chi Chih practice is known to greatly enhance creativity.
An added invitation: Justin’s great friend, Paul Reps, used to say, “The Universe is so young. While we’re waiting, why not poem a little?” I encourage people practicing T’ai Chi Chih to write about their experiences and share them with our greater T’ai Chi Chih community by submitting them to The Vital Force (kim.grant@taichichih.org) or the T’ai Chi Chih News (taichichihnm@yahoo.com). You may surprise yourself when you put pen to paper, even if you don’t commonly do so.
T’ai Chi Chih – The Large and the Tiny – Featuring the T’ai Chi Chih Principle “Continuity” – Transcription from Video
This process is trustworthy. This energy, this “Knowledge of the Supreme Ultimate” that we are learning we ARE is trustworthy. You are trustworthy. Read more.
“Ushering in the Silence” - a T’ai Chi Chih Retreat - January 2024 - Participants Reflect: What did you learn or enjoy exploring in our time together?
“Having teachers and students at the retreat was/is encouraging and expanding. For the student (me) it’s a wonderful sharing of knowledge, experience and insight. Moreover, there’s a humble, warm environment we are all embraced by. The gentle openness of the process and the instruction so matched the gentleness and openness (expansiveness) of TCC practice. What a fine atmosphere to learn in!” Read more.
“Joy Through Movement” – a T’ai Chi Chih Workshop - October 2023 - Participants Reflect: Please share something you learned during our time together (about T’ai Chi Cih, Awareness, Joy, Receiving, Allowing, Yourself, Life, or anything else!):
“I’ve discovered that T’ai Chi Chih seems to attract people that express real caring, joy and love. I was surprised that just a little change in my hands made a huge difference. It is so refreshing to be with a group that is so interested in doing something so good for all of us.” Read more.
“Joy Through Movement” – a T’ai Chi Chih Workshop - October 2023 - Participants write Pyramid Poetry:
– Pyramid Poetry is a form of poetry originated by Justin Stone which helps bypass the intellect and intuitively gets us in touch with our inner Knowing.
Snow
Winter
Slumber Deep
Awake Stretch Rise
Calm Still Peace
Go Forth
Hope
High School Students Respond – December 2022
“It’s odd and never explicitly clear to me why, but I find much of my vehement dislike or dissatisfaction for myself dissolves when I practice T’ai Chi Chih. I am kinder to myself – patient and understanding of my body; the weight it carries lifts from me and I feel whole, unburdened (or, at the very least, untroubled by my burdens).” … Read more.
Dyeing the Cloth – The Experiential Heart of T’ai Chi Chih®
TCC Teachers’ Conference July 2022 - featuring “Daughter on the Mountaintop & Daughter in the Valley” (YouTube Video transcript)
I have been drawn lately to how important the heart is in T’ai Chi Chih, and its connection to what it is that we are cultivating. … Read more.
Sounds of Winter – Light and Dark – Featuring “Bass Drum” (YouTube Video transcript)
Cavernously silent heart soundings whisper in a way I’m only beginning to receive. You’re here. You’re here. It is such an elusive and delicate language it disappears when I try to grasp it. … Read more.
Circularity – featuring “Around the Platter - Variation” (YouTube Video transcript)
“T’ai Chi Chih is a physical cultivation, which is cultivating the Ultimate,” said Justin Stone, “If more people realized what was going on with T’ai Chi Chih, I think they would take it more seriously.”… Read more.
Being HERE! – Helpful Encouragement
for Just Prior to Starting a T’ai Chi Chih Practice - featuring “Around the Platter” (YouTube Video transcript)
“The attitude with which you start T’ai Chi Chih practice is all important,” Justin used to say often. He talked frequently about “attitude.” Prior to beginning my T’ai Chi Chih practice, now, instead of outer-directed ambition, I’ve learned to stand more reverently, open to a gentle receiving. … Read more.
Reluctance Shifting
I settled in and my (inner) gaze steadied itself on the T’an T’ien. I felt a gentle eagerness to stay, to experience this new territory, joyous with no opposite, eyes open, awareness comfortably at ease in what is also called the Wisdom Center. … Read more.
Flying Blind –
ZOOM T’ai Chi Chih Classes in the time of COVID 19
What I have discovered so far in these early days (teaching on Zoom) is that the most important aspect is feeling my own groundedness during the practice. I need to not be afraid to “listen” and “receive” information as it comes internally rather than through other senses. … Read more.
Polarity in T’ai Chi Chih –
We are the Form & the Formless
The connection we feel when the palms face one another encourages a deeper embodiment of what we come to Know. We are Connection. We are the Substance we feel and shape between the palms. We are THAT. … Read more.
Image pose “Graceful Conclusion” or “Resting Pose”
Hello, Old Friends
… something prompted me to venture outside, sit on the porch swing and drink a cup of coffee with no other motive. I listened to the birds and bore witness to the aliveness in front of me. Almost imperceptively, a relational exchange began to awaken within and without. … Read more.
Image Pose: Rocking Motion
The Gift of Paradox
Whenever movement discernment questions arise, I know that an awareness of paradox is being asked to expand in me. … Read more.
Image Pose: Bird Flaps Its Wings
The Nei Kung: Snippets from Saturday Night
Each semester, I introduce the safe and gentle Nei Kung practice (as presented in Justin Stone’s Meditation for Healing) to my beginning T’ai Chi Chih students about halfway through their semester-long class. In so doing, the Nei Kung has proven to be very helpful … Read more.
Image pose: Around the Platter
We Need Each Other
After presenting Justin’s form of Turiya meditation in two early morning optional sessions at the recent T’ai Chi Chih Teachers’ Conference in Philadelphia, I found myself sobbing in gratitude and appreciation for the support I had received from so many directions. Leading up to the Conference, … Read more.
Image pose: Around the Platter - Variation
Continuity - "Push Pull" and "Rocking Motion" Through the Lens of Expansion and Contraction
Another aspect of feeling the chi more strongly in Push Pull has to do with the palms at the backward flowing transition point of the movement. What I have observed is that practitioners loose out on the full power of both this movement and Rocking Motion by … Read more.
Image pose: Bass Drum
Wrist Vitality - Feeling the Chi
When practicing TCC, one of the essential elements to enhanced "chi" circulation in my experience is found within the wrists and knowing how to engage them in various movements. For example, while practicing "Around the Platter", take a look at the hand position when the hands are closest to the body at the center of the chest. Do the fingers droop downward? If so, lift them to neutral,… Read more.
Image pose: Daughter on the Mountain Top
10th Graders Speak on T’ai Chi Chih
“T’ai Chi Chih has been my form of stress relief, anxiety relief and safe haven for about a year. Coming into it, I thought it would be ridiculous, but it proved me wrong. In a competitive school, … Read more.
Image pose: Daughter in the Valley
"Interview" Questions
1. Why do you teach TCC? What personal, spiritual, political or other reasons compel you? … Read more.
Image pose: Carry the Ball to the Side
“Dear New T’ai Chi Chih Student”: More Advice from High School Students to their Peers
Dear New T’ai Chi Chih Student, Welcome to T’ai Chi Chih! If you were looking for a P.E. class that will help you calm your mind, then you have chosen the right class. The movements you will learn may seem hard to you at first but don’t fret! Don’t try learning the movement and focusing on the soles of your feet at the same time! You’ll only stress yourself out even more (believe me, having a headache while doing this is hard!) Focus mainly on the movement itself, then your body will get attuned to it more as you continue … Read more.
Image pose: Push Pull
TEDx: The Growth of Certainty – Including it All TCC Conference 2013 – St. John’s College, Minnesota
An innocuous email from a technology colleague at my school arrived in my “In Box” last October. The email informed us of the upcoming TEDxABQ Symposium on “Innovations in Education” and that they were accepting proposals. … Read more.
Image pose: Pulling in the Energy
The Popping, The Fluttering (And Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My)
I have been thinking a lot lately about the “concepts” that we bring to T’ai Chi Chih practice. From a certain perspective, every single word we say not only passes through our own level of understanding and layers of conditioning in a given moment but can only be digested by another through a lens of his/her current level of understanding and layers of conditioning. … Read more.
Image pose: Basic Pulling Taffy (a)
One Breath, One Movement, One Life
While I happened to be the only one in the room at the moment when Justin died, I don’t feel that moment belongs to me. In my experience, Justin was teaching and aware up until the very end, continuing to share ineffable gifts with us all. … Read more.
Image pose: Basic Pulling Taffy (b)
What is T’ai Chi Chih to you?
While practicing T’ai Chi Chih facilitates a wordless connection, it can also be helpful to notice on a given day, in a particular moment, an answer to the question, “What is T’ai Chi Chih?” I asked my high school students this question at the end of our semester together. Below are some of their responses. … Read more.
Image pose: Working the Pulley
Tension vs. Form: How do we distinguish between the two via the forward-backward weight shift?
Recently a senior T’ai Chi Chih practitioner mentioned that she was no longer lifting up the front foot completely via the backward weight shift, as this seemed to be more relaxing for the foot. Her approach provoked an exciting internal exploration. … Read more.
Image pose: Light at the top of the Head - Light at the Temple (a)
Suffer the Leaves to Fall
Justin has often reminded us that while the leaves fall way, the tree remains the source. With which do we choose to identify?
It has been a particularly beautiful fall season in Albuquerque. Today is November 20, Justin’s birthday. A friend and I decided to go to the Bosque by the Rio Grande to celebrate this day, this teacher, this life. … Read more.
Image pose: Light at the top of the Head - Light at the Temple (b)
TEDxABQED Talk: Effects of T’ai Chi Chih on High School Students
“I just wrote a paper on Plato in an hour—usually it takes me three days!” That exclamation was made from “Mariah,” one of my high school advanced T’ai Chi Chih students. She couldn’t believe it: “The paper virtually wrote itself!” … Read more.
Image pose: Joyous Breath
Teaching Rocking Motion
For beginning students who have never been exposed to T'ai Chi Chih before, Rocking Motion is one of the most difficult movements in the series for them in which to experience "softness and continuity" early on. Instead, they frequently experience balance problems, momentum challenges and locked knees. … Read more.
Image pose: Passing Clouds
Adjustments and Jellyfish
Last year I taught a particularly challenging T’ai Chi Chih class. I suppose one could equate the discomfort I experienced with my rowdy students to a notion of form and formlessness and raise the question again (an ongoing one for me): Where is the form in the formless? Where is the formless in the form? … Read more.
Image pose: Six Healing Sounds
Swimming through Very Heavy Air
What does it mean to “swim through very heavy air?” We all had the opportunity to do some swimming at this year’s 2002 T’ai Chi Chih conference. … Read more.
Image pose: Pose of Cosmic Consciousness