Bubbling With Good Change

Our T’ai Chi Chih (TCC) community is bubbling with joyous change. Justin often talked about the importance of “learning to accord with impermanence.” Change is inevitable; accepting change and how we deal with it is where the challenge lies. Luckily the changes you are about to read here are wonderful.

I have been asked many times, “How do you prepare a teacher candidate for Accreditation?” There has never been a specific program or document detailing the process. Each teacher develops their own way of working with their students. Seeing a need in the community, teachers Lesley Nell, Marie Dotts, and Lisa Otero came together, and using their combined experience of preparing candidates for Accreditation and knowledge of the resources available, created a comprehensive document: T’ai Chi Chih® Teacher Preparation Suggested Curriculum.

It is evident that they spent many, many hours working to develop this document. It is detailed and thorough. Teachers do not have to use this curriculum to prepare their students. They can continue to do as they have always done, preparing in their own way, or they can use some or all of the document. It is strictly up to the teacher how much or if any of this new resource they use. It is just that — a resource developed out of a need, created by seasoned teachers giving their time and knowledge to support other teachers — because that is what we do!

To attend a TCC Teacher Accreditation Course a candidate must work with two teachers. To help candidates who may not have access to two teachers or knowledge of a seasoned teacher that they can work with, either in person or on zoom, another idea was presented to the trainers.

Along with the curriculum for preparing teacher candidates Lesley, Marie and Lisa also suggested the idea of Teacher Prep Coaches. These would be teachers in our community with extensive experience who would be available to work with teacher candidates in preparing them for Accreditation. The teacher trainers reviewed their idea and have moved forward to make this resource available to the community. The requirements for becoming a Teacher Prep Coach can be found on the resource page on the tcccommunity.net website along with the application. A list of Teacher Prep Coaches will be added to the resource page on the community website as they become qualified.

Teacher Prep Coaches and the Suggested Curriculum are not mandatory for teachers or teacher candidates to use. They are resources available for teachers, created by teachers to support the process of building our community of teachers.

When Sr. Antonia was asked by Justin Stone to take on the role of Guide, guiding the TCC Community, he asked three things of her:

Lead the annual teachers conference

Unite the teachers

Lead TCC into the future

When Sr. Antonia asked me to be Guide, beginning 2014, she passed those three responsibilities on to me. I am thrilled to be able to now pass those three responsibilities on to someone else. It is not so much that I am delighted not to have those responsibilities but delighted by who will now be serving the TCC community in the capacity of Guide — Marie Dotts.

Marie has been a TCC teacher since 1998. When Marie moved from Minnesota to Colorado there were no TCC teachers in Northern Colorado. She started teaching TCC there in 2013 building an active community of TCC teachers, so much so that the new community of NoCo teachers hosted a teacher conference in Boulder in 2017. Marie has hosted Teacher Accreditations and Intensives working closely with the teacher trainers over the years. She has presented at retreats and workshops and has prepared many teacher candidates for Accreditation. She has a deep understanding of the spiritual nature of the practice. She brings a wealth of experience and deep devotion to sharing this life-enhancing form of movement to the role of Guide.

It has been my joy to serve the TCC community as Guide these past 12 years. I hope you all will join me in welcoming Marie as our new Guide and give her the love and support you have given me these past years. I will continue in my role as a teacher trainer and remain on the TCC Foundation Board for now. The community is in good hands with such a deeply grounded person as Marie and I have no doubt TCC will flourish under her leadership. Thank you, Marie, for accepting to serve the community in this way and for your willingness to share your love and open heart with us. Because that is what we do in TCC!