Seated TCC For People With Special Needs

Editor’s Note: Charles has been a student in Darlene Karasik’s seated T’ai Chi Chih class at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, California since its inception.

I believe that no one really wants to learn T’ai Chi Chih seated. People remain seated only because they have to. For more than eight years, I’ve attended a class devoted to people who are paraplegic, quadriplegic, have suffered a stroke or been diagnosed with cerebral palsy. It seems to me that all of them would rather stand when doing TCC. Something important they share in common is a strong desire not to be treated as second-class citizens just because they’re seated.

Because of these students’ special individual needs, this is not a typical seated TCC class. TCC’s current approach seems to me aimed more at students expected to return to standing TCC classes in the near future; it doesn’t seem designed for disabled individuals who will remain seated students. It’s important that we as teachers teach all students – seated and standing – equally well.

Attending the last four or five workshops Antonia has conducted in late winter in Northern California, I’ve seen only a few young students or teachers. I see the same thing in classes held by other teachers, except the few who teach in schools. This has implications for the future of TCC.

As our society ages, we will see even more older people in our classes. As an increasing number of people with disabilities understand their rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), we also will see more disabled students in our classes. This law, passed in 1990 and updated in 2009, requires that people with disabilities have the same access to employment, transportation, buildings, events and other opportunities as those without disabilities.

People covered by the ADA law include those with sight and hearing impairments, autism and some of the complications of aging. TCC teachers need to consider how they can effectively work with special needs that students with disabilities may present.

As Suzanne Kates, LMT says in her article “Elders Benefit from a Healing Touch,” adapted here, “The disabled are persons who are still growing, still learners, still filled with potential, and whose lives continue to have within them promise for and connection to the future. The disabled are still in pursuit of happiness, joy and pleasure, and their birthright to these remains intact.”