Getting Started After Accreditation

This is some of the history of my teaching experience since the completion of teacher training under Justin Stone, Santa Barbara, CA, December 1989.

I was a student of Fran Dukehart, who recommended I become a T’ai Chi Chih teacher. After completing that training under Justin, I continued as a team teacher with Fran in San Luis Obispo. That was an exhilarating experience. Fran is a superior teacher, innovative, creative, and decisive.

Recently I retired and was given the opportunity to teach T’ai Chi Chih in Morro Bay. One of our beloved teachers, Martha Immel, was teaching here and recently moved to Oregon. She asked if I would be interested in taking over her classes. It’s been a growing, satisfying, and esteeming experience. We will hold a class by the beautiful Morro Bay Estuary this summer–an inspiring out-of-doors area. It will be good to see the class I graduated with at Menlo Park in July! I’m excited about taking Seijaku from Justin, as well. See you there!

– Billie Blair Miller

* * *

“All in all, I am amazed and delighted at how many doors have been opened to me by TCC and by how much I am learning as I step through each door.”

I received my teacher accreditation with Steve in Bemidji, MN in May of 1990. In the first year I went to several of the tennis/health/fitness clubs in the surrounding towns and found them quite receptive to the idea of an alternative to step aerobics and led several classes in that setting. A new age bookstore was an enthusiastic sponsor for several classes. I taught TCC to a group of 3rd grade children and their practice became a show stopping moment in the annual Parent’s Day Program. (Weren’t we all proud!) I also was asked to do a series of lessons for cable presentation for the Department of Aging for the State of Vermont. Over a year ago I became a staff member of the Muscular Therapy Institute and have been teaching there on a regular basis since then. (That is, when I am not in Mexico!) All in all, I am amazed and delighted at how many doors have been opened to me by TCC and by how much I am learning as I step through each door. Even with several months of teaching lost due to surgery, there are more possibilities for classes and teaching than I can keep up with. My heartfelt thanks to Justin, Steve and my original teacher, Theda Gillespie.

In the peace of the practice,

– Betty Comey
Arlington, MA