Globetrotter Sandy McAlister takes T’ai Chi Chih along

The luck of the Irish was with us to catch up with Sandy McAlister just before she left for a week with the Sierra Club, then an intensive in New Jersey, and fianlly a teacher training in the Bay Area. What would be a frantic pace for some, Sandy takes in stride.

VFJ: How did you grow up?

Sandy: I was very, extremely, painfully shy. I know that nobody is going to believe that, but it’s true. I hated recess because you had to go out and play with the other kids. Like, no, I want to stay here and sit at my desk. I didn’t try out for anything; I wasn’t in any groups. My mother thought I would never leave home and never leave her apron strings.

VFJ: Did you?

Sandy: Yeah, the first time I left home I was 20. I moved up to Sun Valley in Idaho and became a ski bum. I went up there to work and I learned to ski. That’s where I learned all the vices. I had to leave home to do that; I couldn’t do that at home.

VFJ: Where was home?

Sandy: I was born in Utah, but we moved from there when I was six months old, so I grew up here in California in the Bay Area. I have a younger sister and much younger brother. I was raised Mormon, so it was a strict upbringing, and a lot of my time outside of school was spent with church people doing church things. I was raised very religious, and then I did a 180 and became like, “Back! Back! Don’t get near me!” Part of my growing up thing, I guess. It was kind of a big thing of my life, and getting away from it was a big thing, too.

VFJ: And now, you’re not a ski bum anymore. Do you have, what would you call it, a day job?

Sandy: I work for two school districts, in their older adult program department. I go into convalescent homes, senior housing, and senior centers where I teach gentle range-of-motion exercise classes. I make people laugh and I tell jokes and we do trivia. I try to make people feel like there is somebody still listening to them.

VFJ: How old are they?

Sandy: Oh my gosh, they are in their 80s and 90s, sometimes more.

VFJ: Where do you get the jokes?

Sandy: They have to be real simple. Mostly it’s me. I’m the joke [laughing]. They know everything about me, but I figure it brings a real person to them. I tell them everything that happens in my life, the good and the bad. They still like me, even then.

VFJ: Unlike a classroom full of kids, are they the same people?

Sandy: Yes, to some of the places I’ve been going for 10 years. Some of the people have come and gone in those 10 years, but still, in convalescent homes, sometimes people hang in there for a loooong time.

VFJ: This is part of the school district?

Sandy: Yes, actually. Here in California, the school system pays for teachers in the older adult program to go into these different facilities and teach classes. They will teach current events and exercise and music. Yes, I actually get paid to go in and be silly and make people laugh and make them exercise.

VFJ: Do you do TCC with them?

Sandy: There are a few groups that are able to do some seated TCC.

VFJ: Do you teach other groups, too?

Sandy: There are a couple T’ai Chi Chih classes that I teach for older adults through the education department, which are for active healthy older adults, and they come once a week for the class. One of my classes has been going on every Friday now for about 10 years and I still have a couple people who started with me way back then. I also have classes through Hayward recreation department, and I teach for three different Kaiser facilities through their wellness programs.

VFJ: What do your students want from you in general? Are they pious, or spiritual? Or do they want to alleviate their arthritis or lose weight?

Sandy: I think most of the time it’s the stress thing. I think that’s the biggest reason people come to classes. They are looking for something that will make them feel more comfortable in life. They feel crazy and stressed out, and that’s what they hear T’ai Chi Chih is good for, among other things.

VFJ: No grass is growing under your feet?

Sandy: Well, you got to do it while you can. I have to pay for the time I take off and for vacations. You don’t get any benefits working for the school department when you’re part time.

VFJ: Is your employer amenable to when you go off to these intensives and trainings for a week at a time?

Sandy: So far they haven’t said anything, but this year is going to be stretching it. So I’m just kind of waiting on that. I just keep putting in, saying, “Okay, I’m taking next week off,” and if they ask why, I tell them. They know what I do. Not only do I take off for all the T’ai Chi Chih stuff, but I have to take off for my vacations, too. And that’s always three, four, sometimes five weeks.

VFJ: You do fab things on your vacations. I remember you went to Nepal?

Sandy: Yes, in 1995. That trip ties back into the religion thing. What I learned in going there was a little more tolerance. After doing a 180 and being very cynical about any type of religion—you know, people with their rosary beads, and people who do all these different kinds of rituals with church—I go to Nepal, and I see people with their mala beads and they’re chanting, which is just like repeating prayers, and they have lots of rituals. Yet it was more acceptable because it was different and exotic. You know, Tibetan religion is really in, kind of mystical and cool, and here are these cool people doing these cool things. I realized it was the same thing that I was putting other people down for. So it was quite a revelation. It was a very good learning experience in that I recognized that.

VFJ: How long were you there?

Sandy: Three weeks. I did some trekking in the mountains and sightseeing in Katmandu.

VFJ: Was that your first huge journey away from your mother’s apron?

Sandy: It was in 1983 to Morocco and Spain, my first big going away out of the United States.

VFJ: And what took you there?

Sandy: This fellow I was dating at the time (laughing). I loved Morocco. We rented a car. I wanted to spend more time in Morocco and he wanted to spend more time in Spain, so we divided it evenly, exactly a week and a half in Morocco and exactly a week and a half in Spain. Then I didn’t do anything until the Nepal trip in 1995. And now it’s like I’m on a roll and you can’t hold me back. I want to go to all these interesting, different, challenging places. What I really go for is the challenge. Europe is out, forget that. People look like you, dress like you. I’d rather go see temples and monasteries than churches, but then again, hey, is that the same thing? Hello. You know, how I was negative about western religion, and yet I think, oh, eastern religion, whooo, cool. Religion is religion really, once you get to the core of it.

VFJ: What did you find when you went to Central America?

Sandy: My sister and I went down on our own. We went to Belize, Guatemala, and Costa Rica.

VFJ: So overall, are you able to make any assessment of the world changing? Are people more globalized?

Sandy: I’ve probably gone to too many varied places, and sometimes when you go to those places you don’t really get to talk to the people. If you’re with a tour group, and sometimes I’ve been with a tour group, you see the sights but you don’t get to spend time to really talk with people. Unless you do it like you did, Kathy, and live there, and you get to really converse with people and get to know their hearts and mind. I wouldn’t mind doing that, spending months in one place, but I keep thinking there are so many places to see that I would have a hard time doing that.

VFJ: Where do you go last year?

Sandy: I did a 24-day driving and camping trip in Africa—South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Botswana. I was 10 years older than the oldest person, and everybody else was 10 years younger than he was, so basically I was 20 years older than everybody.

VFJ: Did they single you out as the den mother?

Sandy: No, I wouldn’t take on that role. I wanted to be like everyone else, and I’m not the mothering type anyway, and I sure made it clear from the beginning. I was the only American. They were from New Zealand, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany. I did a tandem skydive for the first time. That was pretty cool—over the sand dunes looking over to the Atlantic Ocean in Namibia. I could only talk two other people into going with me, bunch of ninnies (laughing). The animals were absolutely wonderful. I’ve always had a soft spot for zebras and when I saw my first running herd I just started crying. I’ve felt so stupid, like, I’m really seeing zebras, oh my God, look at that. The landscape was wonderful, to do it camping and driving. The first several days reminded me very much of the Southwest U.S., New Mexico, Nevada. I kept wondering when are we going to get to Africa? Then we got to the sand dunes in Namibia. We rode sand-dune quad bikes. I’m the only one who dumped my bike, I guess because I was more daring, or more…. I jumped up and got back on again. Great fun.

VFJ: Your next trip?

Sandy: My next trip is Turkey, a really old culture. Justin was funny. I happened to mention Turkey, and he wrote back, why Turkey? I wrote him and said, hey, I’m traveling with five good friends, there’s great Mediterranean food, and six days cruising on the Mediterranean Sea in our own private yacht. I get to walk in the footsteps of Abraham, where Abraham was born. Whirling dervishes, Rumi’s home and burial place, all on the agenda. So he wrote back to say, you make me want to go with you.

VFJ: You will be teaching T’ai Chi Chih to the Sierra Club next week, let’s go to that.

Sandy: That’s one of my favorite things to do. This will be my fifth year. The Sierra Club has planned weeklong national outings all over the U.S. We usually go up into the Sierras here. The program I do is a combination hiking and T’ai Chi Chih. People come from all over the U.S. We stay in a lodge, very rustic. In the morning we have a T’ai Chi Chih lesson, then go for a hike, then come back in the afternoon and have another lesson. In the evenings, I might show Justin’s video. I might show the Carmen and Justin interview video to give people a chance to connect with Justin and hear his words, too. I always take my teacher list so that I can refer people to a teacher in their area. It’s wonderful to see people who are taking a lesson twice a day for five days how much they progress, how fast they learn it—it’s just incredible. And I really would like to know—I probably should do a follow-up, but I haven’t—are they sticking with it?

VFJ: I imagine that if it were meaningful to them that they would keep it up.

Sandy: Last year I had one lady… We had a class in the morning, and then we took this nice gentle hike out to a lake. They asked to do it there at the lake before we ate our lunch. So we did another practice, and for this one woman, the practice just brought tears to her eyes. The serenity of the place and something about doing the practice really touched her. She was doing the practice, and she had tears streaming down her face. She said, “I don’t really know what’s going on, other than I was really touched by the beauty as we were doing the practice.” Yeah, it can do that to you. Really can touch your heart and open you up. That was pretty cool for her to have that experience.

VFJ: How did you get a gig like that?

Sandy: The Sierra Club has a lodge in the mountains by Truckee, and I went up there for a hiking weekend and started talking, and the old “What do you do?” came up, and they said, “Well, come and teach a class here at the lodge.” So I came and did a weekend class. Then they said you should do one of those weeklong things with the national outings. So it was just one of those things. I would like to do it a couple times a year and go to different places. They also have international outings. I’m working toward that, one of these days.

VFJ: Well, I’m jealous.

Sandy: It’s a matter of following what you like to do, and doors will open. Then you have to walk through them. Sometimes they are already open; it’s figuring out that they are open.

VFJ: All these hints presenting ways to turn in our lives, it’s right in front of us. We don’t have to read books.

Sandy: That’s one thing that T’ai Chi Chih has done for me. I don’t know if I can put it in words, but it’s allowed me to be open to experiences, and when they come, to be able to be in a space that I can partake of them. I think that is due to doing my practice.

VFJ: How did everything get started?

Sandy: I wasn’t going to be a teacher. The only reason I took training was so I could learn from Justin. At that point in 1985, the only way you could learn from him was to take teacher training. So I told my teacher, “No way am I going to be a teacher.” So I took the training, came back, and I still had no intention of being a teacher, but I kept going to her class because I wanted to keep connected with T’ai Chi Chih and doing it. Then the company I worked for closed down, so I was out of a job, and hanging out because I got six months severance pay. Those were the days when I was still pretty much a hand-to-mouth kind of person, and didn’t really plan for the future. Of course I still don’t [laughing], but even less in those days, thinking, ooh, I’ve got six months of money here, I don’t have to work for a long time. I can stretch this out. A few months later, my teacher said, “Hey, I’m moving to Japan. Would you take over this T’ai Chi Chih class here, the one that you’ve been coming to all the time?” I said, uh, well, yeah, I can do that, because I don’t have a job, and I’ve been coming here doing this long enough with you, hanging out, I can do that, sure. The rest, as they say, is history.

VFJ: Now look at where you are.

Sandy: Who would have ever guessed, how many years ago when I started T’ai Chi Chih that I would still be doing it, and that I would be doing what I’m doing now? I mean, it never entered my mind… anywhere along the line… that I would be in any kind of position. Even though I always taken these positions of helping at conferences and doing those kinds of things, stepping forward, that to me was just like, well, stepping forward to help. But having a position of authority or responsibility that I have now, I don’t think ever entered my realm of consciousness. I could be fooling myself, but I don’t think so. Not that it wasn’t possible—but that I’d even wanted to do it, or that it would even come my way. And why would it? I was just a T’ai Chi Chih teacher.

VFJ: No, I think you stood out. Maybe you just thought of yourself as a teacher, but you know, people have a certain aura, or presence, and those people might not know it, but everybody else does. You had to be somewhat present that Justin noticed. I mean, how did that happen that you were named?

Sandy: I guess because I’m active in the community. I attended every conference. I only missed one when I was really poor and we didn’t have scholarships at that time. I would audit trainings and any time there was anything in Albuquerque like meditation retreats, I would come. I was always sort of a TCC groupie, right out there with it. And I was not shy to talk to Justin, although he was very intimidating in the beginning. I remember my first time, when he lived here in the Monterrey area. I was going to visit him, I don’t remember why, maybe something about a conference that we were doing. I thought, “Oh my gosh, I don’t know what to say to him, I don’t know how to talk to him, I have no idea what to say to him, but I’m going anyway.” I know I felt very intimidated to be one-on-one with him. In a group, no big deal, but to go down there one-on-one, gosh, I don’t know this guy and I have nothing to say that could be worth listening to. I know I had that attitude.

VFJ: And how did it go?

Sandy: Oh, he knows how to make people comfortable. He knows how to make people damn uncomfortable, too [laughing].

VFJ: What do you think about the new Intensive program? People seem to love them.

Sandy: I think they’re wonderful. I did my first one in Houston. I loved doing it. The students—even though it was intense—said it was still fun and they really enjoyed it. I think it’s going to make a big difference, not only for the students, but also for the teachers. Intensives are the only thing where teachers can really have their practice evaluated. We don’t have any other format for that. Workshops, what can you do in one day with 30 or 40 people? And at trainings, your attention is focused on the students. At the conferences, that’s all self-evaluation. So the intensive is just as valuable for teachers as it is for students.

VFJ: So, I hope you have a good Sierra Club outing before the Intensive in New Jersey. It must feel good to be free, not tied to a desk.

Sandy: Yeah, sometimes when I get tired of what I do, I remember, hey, what’s the alternative? 8 to 5, two weeks off a year? But all the money I should be putting away for retirement I spend on my vacations because I would rather experience it now while I’m healthy. Who knows what’s in the future? I’m not willing to sacrifice now for later. I’m just not one of those kind of people, never have been actually. So I’ll be working till I’m 70 or longer. That may not be such a bad thing either.