By Bob Sinkewicz
I have been practising Tai Chi now for 35 years and I enjoyed the great privilege of being in Mr. Moy’s daily early morning class at D’Arcy Street for 5 years just before Mr. Moy’s passing. There were many things that Mr. Moy taught us at that time that I did not fully appreciate or understand. One of the things that he would mention with some frequency was the importance of tendon changing. By tendon changing he meant the full extension of the muscles (and the separation of their fascia), tendons and ligaments from the bottom of the feet to the top of the head in every stretch. Because we were practising every day over a long time, this happened without my being fully aware of it. But Mr. Moy would remind us that as we get older we need to practise at least twice as much as we did when younger. Now that I am much older I can appreciate that advice. During my wife’s final illness I was unable to practise as much as I did previously and by the time that I was able to return to regular practice, my hip and pelvic joints had become very stiff and my muscles felt like they were all stuck together. Over the past two years that I have been doing Tai Chi with the Jung Jing Tai Chi Society, Steve Lee has helped me to regain the muscle and joint mobility that I previously had and even to build further on it. In order to reverse or at least hold off the process of aging with respect to diminishing mobility, we need to practise a Tai Chi that goes beyond merely “doing the moves” to the point where we are working on some real tendon changing.
Before Mr. Moy died he said to us that no one person in the future would have all the teachings that he gave us, but many students would each have a small piece of the puzzle. He said that when he was gone we should get together and share what each of us knows. That is the way his teaching would live on. This is how we will come to understand many other teachings that Mr. Moy gave us, such as “think too much”, “turn inside not outside”, and my favourite “stand up, sit down – same time”.
Translation by Jordi Awarita, Cathy Filion