Student’s doubts about feeling chi are overcome during her first class

Student of Sharon Sirkis

When I signed up to take a physical education class over the winter session, my main motivation was to get an easy gym credit and not have it take a full semester. I chose to take T’ai Chi Chih mainly because it fit my schedule and it was a class that did not seem to sound too difficult in the catalog. I mean how can 20 different moves be a hard class? This class was something that I was definitely not taking seriously. I tend to be a skeptical person and thought that T’ai Chi Chih was some new age class. That no one ever really felt their Chi, it was just something people say to fit in with the group, and if they did find their Chi, what good would it do them to know they have it? Then I came to the first class and from almost the very beginning my attitude was changed.

The moment that I felt that this was something that may be very beneficial to me was when we did [a] simple [exercise] of squeezing our hands together 20 times and then bringing them together slowly. I didn’t think that I would feel anything, but I did. When I felt the warmth and tingling sensation between my hands, I thought to myself that this was something, that I was going to get something out of this class.

I have always been a very high tension, high-strung person. I always feel like I have to be on the ball and in control at all times. Especially when it comes to my job and school, I think you could say that I am somewhat of a control freak. Calm was never in my vocabulary. I always have five different things going at once and tend to like it that way.

So after that first class I went home and started doing the movements that we had learned that day. I noticed myself becoming calm and more focused. My partner saw it also; he came home that evening and I actually sat and talked to him without doing something else, like cooking or folding clothes. He was impressed with how I was calmer and trying not to let things bother me like they usually do. I also have found in my job that I am able to step back and assess a situation before going into it. I tend to be the one that jumps in with my opinion and the way to fix my clients’ problems. I am trying now to sit back and really listen and observe before jumping in. I know that I have a long way to go before I am really a calm person. I still have three things going on at once and I still find myself getting agitated easily, but the more that I practice T’ai Chi Chih I feel myself becoming a more centered person who is more able to focus.