Learning From The Elders

“I’m looking for something to help me with my balance,” the older woman told the T’ai Chi Chih instructor before class began. The teacher, a woman about 25 years younger, in her early 50’s, started thinking fast about all the things she could say to motivate this potential new student.

She couldn’t find her voice, though, because she didn’t practice TCC to improve her balance but did it because she wanted to have more Chi flow. Instead of saying anything else, she welcomed the new student and told her that if she became tired or if something in her body started to hurt, she should take a seat and watch the class. No reason to do too much the first time.

The new student heard some of what the teacher told her but also was excited by the prospect of trying something new, so she wasn’t taking in everything she heard. More older folks walked into the center and soon there were about 10 participants for the hour-long class. A woman walked in with a cane and clearly wasn’t able to navigate her lower body very well. She took her place near the upright piano so she could hold on. The teacher brought her a chair to keep nearby, just in case.

A gentleman with white hair was bent a bit at the waist and took command of the sign-in sheet so the teacher didn’t have to hand it around. An Asian-American woman walked in with her buddy, a Cuban-American woman, who was favoring her right shoulder and arm. Another Asian-American woman, with a willow-like body but little grounding, joined the circle the class was forming. This circle enabled everyone to feel equal and welcome and also part of something outside of themselves.

There was no music so occasionally one heard the sound of a machine of some type in the hallway next to the huge senior cafeteria where the class was held. The sound was bad enough that at times the teacher felt it took her breath away. She never complained because she was too eager to please staff at the assisted living facility that hosted the class for free for residents and the outside community.

This TCC class had been going on for many years and the teacher had mellowed during that time. Initially she hoped that every resident would want to reap the benefits of this wonderful, simple, profound practice. Instead, it felt like pulling teeth to get residents to join. There was a lot of resistance, even among the few people who showed up for class and claimed they were interested.

It was hard for the teacher not to feel depressed. Some students just were not that interested because they had other activities. A Jamaican-American woman, for example, went to Brooklyn every week to her old neighborhood to shop, attend church and dance. She had a glint in her eye when talking about dancing but never once had a similar glint when doing TCC; it just seemed to remind her that her knee hurt.

Another woman couldn’t remember, week-to-week, when the class met. Another had old injuries and perhaps had endured a stroke; it was very challenging for her to do yinning and yanging, especially on one side.

Sometimes a student who’d easily been able to do TCC may have fallen on the sidewalk one day, hit her head and been injured. The teacher felt bad when she heard that the lady with the red hair and great posture, who seemed to follow TCC movements best, wasn’t able to come to class any more. Events like these revealed difficult truths about the aging process.

It took all of the teacher’s self-determination, stamina, intellectual understanding and belief in herself to keep the ball rolling and return week after week. Partly she felt as though she’d been thrown in deep water and didn’t know whom exactly she was supposed to save. Was it herself, her best students, the worst students, the most ill students? She wasn’t sure. She relied on the movement to do the saving.

Now that the teacher had seen much younger loved ones and friends outside the protected circle of the TCC class face cancer and other health maladies and hit major lows that they had never anticipated, she felt great gratitude for her practice. She herself wasn’t immune to health challenges but saw them in a different light than many of her friends who didn’t practice TCC.

Over time, she no longer saw such a huge difference between herself and the older folks she taught but instead experienced more of a commonality among all people. This felt like a huge safety net and made her feel as though she literally was guided at times, even outside of TCC practice.

Perhaps the sacred circle had expanded.