Floating on the Energy

Today ... t'ai chi chih class day. Thursdays currently consist of two one and one-half hour classes, back-to-back, one for beginners and one for continuing students. The continuing class began in Summer 2004. For the past year or so we've spent our time in a full TCC practice session, then read and discussed the Tao. The question I ask my students is this: How does the message of the Tao relate to our TCC practice?

Today's lesson from the Tao: Verse 48. Wayne Dyer's book, Change Your Thoughts Change your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao, translates part of this verse as follows:

Learning consists of daily accumulating.
The practice of the Tao consists of daily diminishing;
decreasing and decreasing, until doing nothing.
When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

An accurate description of t'ai chi chih practice, I'd say. Why? Because I'm constantly looking for more and more ways to simplify my practice, to let go of tension and become more relaxed, to release Monkey Mind, and to flow through ... and on ... and with ... the chi.

Justin Stone, the originator of TCC, often describes performing this practice as engaging in "the effort of no effort." When we relax enough, "flowing in soft motion as if in a dream," we have the opportunity to let go of much in our practice that is unnecessary: overreaching, overstepping, leaning too far forward or back, making too-large circles in the air, and/or adding beautiful, dramatic flourishes to the form that diminish rather than elevate the chi.

Too often, this overdoing and overreaching distracts from the essence of TCC practice which is to: Activate, Balance, and Circulate the chi or vital force energy. After much practice we become able to recognize the areas in which we overDO. Verse 48 says to me: BE instead of DO. Minimize your movements. Trust the chi to guide and carry you. Float on the energy.