The Birthing Life T’ai-Chi Way!

To appreciate the Birthing Way, we must differentiate between two basic approaches to learning movement:  First there is movement done from the “outside,” memorized by rote, constructed. The body is told what to do and made it do it through the application of will and tension from the mind.  This is the usual way most movement is taught, with the student mimicking the teacher and programming a set of forms, like learning the steps to a dance or doing a callisthenic workout.  This is also the way T’ai-Chi is often taught. There is another way, the Birthing Life T’ai-Chi Way!

In the Tao of life, all things are birthed into being.  From the hatching of a delicate humming bird to the birth of a new solar system, the process of life can be seen at work giving birth to new forms.  The Birthing Way attempts, in its respect for the way all things in nature come into being, to awaken in the student an intimate knowing of this birthing way of life:  The way a ripple moves through the water or wind through high grass.  Movement that is born has the sinuous grace of a panther and the strength of an eagle spreading its wings to soar upon air.

Birthing Life T’ai-Chi attempts to teach the student an approach to living, living from an image of birthing rather than from a construct of memorization and programming.  From the beginning of the first class, students are encouraged to move as a response to their feeling of internally sensed movement, or “chi”.  Imagination awakens as they begin to trust their own internal sensibilities.  Consciousness begins to ride the embodied horse of experience rather than the constructs of memory.  The “forms’ of T’ai-Chi now continue to grow from these rooted personal experiences into the full flowering expression of a life once again connected to the flow of health and well being that comes from being able to leave the past behind.  This work is very strong in working with addictions.

Inwardly sensed movement of chi, or life energy, is very intimate.  Birthing Life practice deepens this experience of intimacy with the spontaneous movements of life. This greatly enhances the ability to experience intimacy with another.  Boundary issues are only a problem where one’s sense of self is based upon the constructs of memory. There are so many rules that must be followed around a memorized self-identity.  This is the worst addiction of all, and what lies beneath all others.  It is the attachment to a memorized self-identity that is the true source of our inability to connect with our self, each other, or life.  It keeps us an outsider, unable to relax or trust.  As consciousness bonds with sensed life, the spontaneity of imagination replaces the judgmental ideas one had about life, one is overwhelmed by the sense that one is an insider again!  This shift may be the most important move one will ever make.

By learning how to trust the intimate movements of life, or chi, and discovering how to respond to them, a relationship begins to develop with one’s personal teachers of life.  Utilizing the form of T’ai-Chi, the master now guides the student in the recollection of their original inborn movement responses. Through repeated discriminating contact with these sense-abilities, a realization of Self begins to grow that honors again who one was born to be.

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