Help, the Chi Is Killing Me!

A teacher’s first teaching experiences

Susan Evans, West Chester/Cincinnati, OH

Well, not really. Last April, one year after accreditation, I decided that I really must do something about starting to teach a class. I wrote to a few places and was really pleased when a sports center close to home was interested. I decided to set a maximum of 12 to a class. More than 20 people signed up for the class so I ended up splitting the class into two, one following the other, starting at 7pm.

I guess I really didn’t think it out very well before hand. After classes that Thursday I did not get to sleep until after 3am and I get up at 6am! I was really worried as I can’t function well with only that much sleep and was making plans to ask other instructors if they could take one of the classes for me. I thought I’d give it a few weeks to see if things settled down. Well they did. I can’t say I slept well or even all night but my saving grace was that I only work 4 hours on Fridays, so I had an afternoon nap the following day.

The second week I brought a book that I call my Good Karma book (not very originally named, I know). I explained that I’d like it to be a book of students’ positive thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc. They can write anything, maybe it’s just a feeling of well being, tingling in their fingers, perhaps they feel that it’s giving them more patience, or their health is improving. (They don’t have to put their names.) I thought that they, as well as I, would enjoy reading each other’s comments and the pleasant things that TCC is bringing to others.

I find that people are a little shy to write in it, but when someone comes up to me to say they think it’s helped their Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or back condition, I ask them to write it in the book.

I recall one student, who also happens to be a colleague, who has problems with her back (from time to time) that cause shooting pains down her legs. Anyone can see that the pain is really bad because she can hardly move. She knows the problem is stress related but that doesn’t help the pain. During the first class she tried very hard, she was in pain and had a lot of trouble balancing. The class was on a Thursday and I had agreed to practice with her during our lunch hours Mondays and Wednesdays. We met the first Monday and the change in her form was dramatic. I told her that I could tell she’d been practicing because she looked so good. She told me she practiced several times each day for the past three days and she said that her back was definitely better. Never one to miss an opportunity, I asked if she’d write about it in the book during the next class.

I really enjoyed teaching the classes. The students were so varied–wide ranges in age, health, occupation, personality, etc.

When I teach, I do not correct a particular student, but generalize to the whole group, a method I picked up from my teacher, Marlene Brown. She says that some people really hate to be corrected. Some students, though, would prefer me to tell them, “Jerry, try not to bob.” So I compromised and said that at least during the first session I would do it my way, but if I saw anything they specifically needed to work on I would tell them after class. This I did. I also did the same thing for students that were doing really well so they too had something specific to work on.

Marlene’s words rang very true, though. One of the other students cornered me later on just as I was leaving and said, “OK, there’s no one around now. What do I need to work on?”

I have now started an intermediate class with these students. For this class I have come up with a system so I can correct the students that want to be corrected personally and not the ones that don’t. I am providing some large sticky circles. If they want me to pick on them they have to put a circle on as they come into the room each week. They have to do this even after I know who does and does not want to be corrected. The reason I have done it this way is that even when someone who usually wants to be picked on may have a bad day and all they want to do is come to the class and relax into the moves.