Building Community In The Digital Age

Note: I’m the Program Director of the Somatics Institute and including some information on how I use email and video to keep in touch with my students. Some Edmonton teachers were interested in how it works, and I thought it would be of interest to the broader community. 

We’ve all experienced how challenging it can be to keep our students engaged in T’ai Chi Chih practice. Daily life often seems to get in the way – an illness, vacation or last minute dinner invitation means that class is sometimes missed. Students struggle with finding time to practice; sometimes getting out the door for class loses to collapsing in front of TV at the end of a long day. 

Over the last year, I have been using the Internet to keep in touch with my clients/students, and the results have been encouraging. Each week I send an email summary of the material covered in class. It might include a quote from Justin Stone and a description of the essential information we covered in the class. But most importantly, I include a video clip of the moves taught.

Many of my students have found the email and video clip help keep them in touch whether they’ve missed class because of illness or vacation. Students also stay more engaged, letting me know when they’ll be missing a class. My classes have very low dropout rates.

The tools I employ are easy to use. I use a free email program called Chimpmail () that has simple directions on how to set up an email list. I make videos during the week and upload them to YouTube. This has become a very simple task these days: I use my iPad to take the video and then upload it directly to YouTube after trimming the beginning and end. I also use iMovie to add a title at the beginning when I want to be fancy. You can find an example at .

It’s quick to create a YouTube account for uploading your videos. YouTube has an option that allows you to make the videos “unlisted” which means that only people you give the link to can see the video. I insert the link into my student’s email and send it off.

I also use links to the excellent Good Karma YouTube resources. There are lots of videos of Justin demonstrating each move as well as examples from many participants at last year’s teacher conference. Search for Good Karma Publishing on YouTube to find the site (www.youtube.com/tccabq).

So often the internet can be a distraction in our lives, drawing us into screens and away from our body. It’s been wonderful to see how we can use the Internet to help people stay connected to their TCC practice, and allow the Chi to move more fully in their lives.