The Lighter Side (July 2006)

Warm greetings from my home in snowy Newfoundland to yours! Just wanted you to know that I practice three new T’ai Chi Chih moves these days! Even have photos to prove it. As Justin says, “I need to practice when I feel like it and practice when I don’t feel like it …” or else, for me, I can’t get out of my driveway!!!!!!

I’ve named the new moves:

• Passing Snowflakes
• Carry the Shovel to the Side
• Push Pull

Not sure my yinning and yanging, my weight shifts are always right on, but they DO get me moving … with SOFTNESS, I hope, and definitely with CONTINUITY… Mother Nature has seen to the latter the past few weeks.

Meanwhile, I am eagerly looking forward to the SUMMER and Conference 2006! See you there!

– Sheila Leonard

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In my senior’s TCC class I like to approach the taffy movements with lightness and humor. Years ago in one of my classes I once described the hand position by saying: “Your hands will be in the position at the hip so that the lower hand “holds the cat” and the upper hand “pets the cat,” letting the hands separate as the weight is shifted. Someone in class who had struggled with the hand position for weeks blurted out, “Well why didn’t you say so before!”

So, last week I brought a soft, stuffed cat to class and that got everyone’s attention. Again I introduced the taffies…and after demonstrating it several times, I picked up the cat and showed them how to “hold the cat, pet the cat.” They liked it and got the image of which direction the palms face.

This week Betty came to class and said she needed to speak to me about the taffies. She said, “I went home and tried to do the taffies and….well, I got confused….I don’t know how to get the cat to jump into the other hand!” We all had a good laugh over that one.

– Linda Braga

* * *

When they form the ball in Around the Platter Variation, I suggest to my students at the Juvenile Detention Center to put their problems and troubles in that ball and then release them. One boy’s ball immediately took the shape of a giant beach ball and he kept it up through the entire set. I didn’t correct him. Afterward he seemed quite joyful. So was I.

– Kathy Grassel