BREATHE
New Year Day 4
Sharing Energy
What a wonderful afternoon on Sunday as my students and those from Enso Tai Chi shared our energy in a special workshop. Attentive, relaxed, positive, flowing, congenial, open, eager, smiling – words that come to mind to describe the feeling in the room.
It is always so energizing to gather like-minded people, in an atmosphere of learning, generating positive Qi (energy)- going inside with breathing, focusing our minds on moving energy in a relaxed, balanced way. I enjoyed the give and take, the easy flow of teaching with Chris Cinnamon, the openness of all the students, the willingness to share and allow whatever was to happen, just happen.
I shared an important comment that Grandmaster Yang Jun said in the International Tai Chi Chu’an Symposium I attended last year — “Tai Chi is about understanding energy, not about learning moves.” Yes, we need to use our minds to learn a specific move with our body, but that’s just the shell. The key is learning to get in touch, feel, move our energy with our minds. This group got it. Knew it. Felt it. At times the energy was palpable.
How special it is to take time to be, to focus our minds on our energy and end up being in the moment. How special it is to share that moment with people whom we meet for the first time, as Tai Chi friends. We share a special connection from the onset – wanting to share energy and find the moment, individually and together.
Learning about Energy
Being in the presence of Tai Chi Grandmasters at the International Tai Chi Symposium was a privilege. Most of the keynote speeches and class instruction were in Chinese. It was amazing how clear and captivating it all was – there was no language barrier when it came to Tai Chi Chuan.
Each master stressed relaxation. Relaxation helps us:
-root. When we’re tense, too much energy is held in the top half of the
body.
-unify energy. We internally release energy from the tan t’ien.
-be agile for change. Otherwise, we can’t distinguish from full and empty,
know where the energy is.
The body becomes steady. The upper body is light; the middle body is agile; the lower body is rooted, energy sinks to the tan t’ien.
A main theme I derived from all the Grandmasters was that Tai Chi is more about learning and understanding our energy rather than performing movements. The movements are important to provide a structure and sequence for directing our mind and energy, but movements are not the goal.
Learning about and understanding our energy is much broader than Tai Chi. For each of us, how we understand and use our energy helps determine our quality of life, every day.
A Fun Way to Learn
Billed as the major event of a three-day symposium, “The Three Pillars of Ancient Wisdom — Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism for the West”, was a very long title. How could someone boil down the essence of each in only two hours? I thought to myself, eagerly awaiting the talk.
The presenter was a lively, engaging calligrapher, Taiji master, philosopher and expert on China past and present, Chungliang Al Huang. His positive, lively Qi filled the room, with infectious energy as some would say.
Right off the bat he said that when we put “ism” on the end of a word, it boxes it in. It makes the content finite and we think too small. We need to open ourselves up to receive, to receive the teachings and have them come alive for ourselves, in how we live, how we relate with others. He added that these “pillars of wisdom” can add quality and openness to our both our thinking and how we treat and move our bodies.
Chungliang Al Huang didn’t spend much time on lecturing. He made the material come alive — by drawing characters through calligraphy of each teaching and then acting it out with with his body and sound movements. After awhile he had us up in the aisles, moving our bodies as we did our best to be “calligraphy in motion”. It was fun, engaging and energizing.
Looking around the room, I saw lots of smiling faces. People were moving with such positive Qi, and yes, it was infectious. The concept of being open to receive with readiness of body and mind had spread throughout the room. Our teacher that afternoon, was a catalyst who helped everybody let go and just be ready to receive the energy that was all around us. And that was his point for living well and fully.
The Effects of Tai Chi
