Back to Me Excerpt: It's All T'ai Chi to Me

By Kim B. Woodruff

Chapter 1: It’s All T’ai Chi to Me

Here’s the deal, the purpose of this work is not to make you take a T’ai Chi class with the thought of “this will heal me” mentality just because I discuss it a LOT within this work. The purpose of this work is to show that PEACE is possible for all of us, not just a select few.

What is T’ai Chi?

Simply put, T’ai Chi[1] is a Chinese martial art that focuses on the center[2]. Unlike karate, which focuses more on strength and speed, T’ai Chi is a completely defensive martial art. Some call it meditation in motion (it is the one you see practiced in the park very slowly). The original form[3] consisted only of Long River Boxing (a very short fighting form), but it has since grown into a much larger sequence of moves. Just like there are variations in how we cook there are many variations of this particular martial art. I learned Yang Style and this is the style I taught my own students. However, I did not teach my students the traditional forms, I taught them one I created with my T’ai Chi teachers that focused on healing from trauma. Once I get into part two of this work, you will notice that I use terms that you may not be familiar with, hence the footnotes.

Why do you move slowly in T’ai Chi if it is a martial art?

A T’ai Chi practitioner moves slowly, and fluidly to focus on every muscle as it is being utilized and to feel each pull and contract. In T’ai Chi we call this stringing the silk. It is also a way to focus on the center of gravity and control the breathing. A T’ai Chi student hones their knowledge of self and power over the individual muscles within their body. The reason for this is to be conscientious of one’s place within the world and to see the micro and macro detail of one’s surroundings. Trust me, moving slowly works muscles in a very different way. Don’t believe me? Try to do a squat in a couple of seconds – easy(ish) right? Now try it again but this time take 10 seconds to go down, and another 10 going up. The difference is endurance. While going through the healing process, I needed something that would teach me patience, and not to rush, I also needed something that would give me the endurance to reach my end goals.

Why all the technical T’ai Chi talk later in the book?

I am writing about the power of peace, how I achieved it, and the very difficult path I took to get there. While I used this meditative martial art as a way to finally come back to me and, more importantly, find my happiness again, it is solely the tool I used for myself. It is similar to a sculptor using a hammer and chisel to create beauty out of a lump of rock. Likewise, I used the forms to help create the inner beauty of self. At the very end of this work is the detailed description of the Inner Peace form I created with the help of my T’ai Chi teachers (Jacqui Shumway and Joe Brady). If it helps you it is there for you. In the Appendix, I discuss all the moves in this T’ai Chi form as well as common questions. The Inner Peace form is meant to be a beginner’s form with the hope of moving forward into traditional classes when my students were ready.

In nearly every chapter of part two and part three, I discuss what moves helped me most for a particular struggle or how they helped my T’ai Chi students. When I created the Inner Peace form, the visualizations and specific purposes for each move had to be at the forefront of my mind. The results were quite incredible.

The Power of the Inner Peace Form:

I am not a scientist, nor am I a psychologist, but I am a survivor of trauma. As we go along our path, we naturally compare ourselves to others who are going through the same process. When I began teaching the Inner Peace form to survivors of the Aurora Theater Shooting, I knew how long it took me to acquire my peace without any kind of guidance and it was about ten years.

I decided to help people who were in a similar trauma because unless you are in this “club” it is hard to explain all of the complicated intricacies of what that pain truly is. I began to teach them this form that I created with my teachers, not knowing if it was going to help any of them, but I had to try—to give just one person a smidge of hope in the darkness. That is all I wanted. But it became so much more than that. I found a community that “got it” and we could talk about shared experiences and insights that we were all finding on our path.

My students’ results from taking my Inner Peace T’ai Chi classes:

· Becoming stronger people than I was or am

· Developing confidence in themselves

· Finding community—we were finally not alone

· Healing exponentially faster when compared to how I healed. Some of my students truly took my advice to heart and made my lessons part of their own path. Based on discussions I had with them, their trauma reactions were the same at year two as mine when I was in year six or seven.

· Feeling the quiet of peace within them as they focused on form. If that is not a true sign of hope, then I don’t know what is.

[1] T’ai Chi – literally means “Supreme Ultimate Boxing” – no I did not make that up. Originated in China and is accredited to founder Zhang Sang Feng about 700 years ago (some say 1500 years ago). [2] Center – your center of gravity and being. It is in the center of your body, about 1-2 inches below your belly button. [3] Form – practicing sequence of moves. All moves have martial art and healing applications. T’ai Chi consists mostly of holds and throws using an opponent’s strength against them.