Moves that heal and Awaken

by Richard Farmer

Healing - healing moves, healing shapes and awakening mind movements. If you could be guaranteed that you could heal from what ails you, wouldn't you say “Yes”? If someone could say, “Look, feel this and you will be free”, wouldn't you seize it with both hands?

A month or so ago I was feeling emotionally broken, distraught, distracted, unhappy and not in a good place. I had a scheduled appointment to teach and given what I was experiencing, there seemed no way that I could be in a fit state for the class - the feelings were just too big. I knew I needed to do something. Should I meditate? I felt too far from it. Should I play a Tai Chi Form? That felt too complicated. Then I remembered that the TMW sequence was designed to take someone from a place of collapsed separation and lead them to a place of connectedness. “Well, I designed it” I thought, ”Guess I had better see if it really works then.”

What happened was a miracle! I felt the healing shapes gradually weave me back together and from there I played a really engaged Tai Chi Form which gathered me enough so that I could give the class.

Think about the shapes of the body creating something like a weather system around the body. A collapsed body shape creates a kind of ‘shroud’ of energy. This in turn influences how we feel and what we think, which also contribute to the weather system which pulls on the body. Can you see how these two, whether they begin on the outside or the inside, can have a powerful effect on how we go about our day?

Think about the kind of shapes that modern life puts us through. Think of sitting at desks, or in cars. or in front of screens or TVs. What kind of weather system is that going to create? What kind of thinking, what kind of view is that weather system going to create in your mind?

There is a verse that came out of a retreat I went to a long time ago with one of my teachers, Ram Dass. "I am a spirit in a spacesuit, only God in disguise, if you look really closely you will see me in my eyes".

Most of us are so shrouded, so full of heavy weather systems, that the light, the spirit that we are, is completely hidden.

Fortunately there are other shapes which reflect or resonate with this inner spirit. As I was moving through “Open to the Day”, and “Flex the Sky”, “Here am I” and the “Five Elements”, I could feel the moves opening the weave of the shroud of pain. I could feel them like the morning sun burning and clearing the early mist, like a fresh breeze carrying away smoke. Not for the first time and yet…for the first time, I really felt the healing power of the shapes that we use in RDTC and Soul Moves. As the weather cleared, I could emerge, I woke up, I became free. Not that the problem had gone away, it was all still there, but my spirit had returned and I was able not just to survive the class, but live it.

This experience confirmed for me the effectiveness of what we do. Here, once again, here is the essence of the path of RDTC. A path which heals so that my essence can shine. With it I can live rather than survive my life. As I am living, almost by very definition I am hearted, I am bringing the heart of me to life. A path with heart.

When I pondered on why these shapes worked, of course the very shapes themselves helped - but it was not just that. I needed to be present to them for them to touch me. I also needed to be receptive enough so that I could receive that touch. There is a triangle made up of the shapes, a sense of presence, and a softness that creates a powerful force of healing. Guaranteed in fact.

So what shapes or moves do you rely on in your life? What shapes do you want to rely on in your life? If we can just be present enough to give ourselves the gift of a healing shape, the day is different. If we can be generous enough to allow that awakening shape to touch us, transformation is assured in some measure. Does it have to be complicated or long? No. It takes just a moment because all we want is to feel that essence and then bring it into what we are doing next. To bring the heart of us to the life we are living right now.

For those of you who are meditators or who are Tai Chi players, there is a sense, arising out of the tradition, that this takes a long time, that it needs a long time. Well whilst the technique may require this, the essence of you does not!

I was listening to a radio programme recently where a man was being interviewed who had spent his whole life studying the sea and the oceans. The interviewer asked him what, in all of his experience, was the most important thing he had learned from the ocean. He said that when we give the life that is in the oceans just a small chance, the ocean instantly repays it a hundred fold. And so it is with us. If you can just give yourself an awakening movement, that which is awake responds immediately.

So whether you are playing your Tai Chi Form, or whether you are using Shibashi, TMW or Soul Moves, be present to the shapes, allow them to touch you as they will, and then let that awakening into your life as you live it.

Richard Farmer

back to articles page