How Could I Not Teach?

Teacher accreditation includes plenty of conversations with fellow teacher candidates: during meals, while taking breaks, when staying up late into the evening. Each also gives a presentation, as if we were speaking in a community or business setting. There’s lots of sharing there too. When asked why I wanted to become a teacher, I was not able to pinpoint an exact moment or memory. The overwhelming answer was, “How could I not?” It was the serendipity of hearing another student gasp as she experiences the release of tension in her shoulder for the first time; the gently murmured ‘ahh’ as someone sinks into a deeper place of peace and calm; the question posed during a lesson, “My neck isn’t hurting now like it was when I came in. Is that Tai Chi Chih?”

How can I not want to share those moments? How can I not share a simple, gentle practice that brings peace and calm and easing of pain and freedom from bottled up negative emotions? I literally move through my days more relaxed and aware of living with less stress tied up in my body. And I like who I am when I’m saturated in the goodness of the accumulated Chi. How could I not teach?