T’ai Chi Chih Intensive Care

Panel presentations about Intensive experiences

By Sheila Leonard, PBVM, Newfoundland

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Sheila Leonard. I am a Presentation Sister from Newfoundland, Canada. It is indeed both a pleasure and a privilege to be here today to share my experience of the first T’ai Chi Chih Intensive in Ringwood, New Jersey, May 2003.

Quite literally, and figuratively, I have come a long way to be here today, and attending the Intensive has truly been a key piece of that journey. The Intensive proved to be an invaluable personal gift, making it possible for me to go more confidently to accreditation training and then to set up my own classes. Today I feel very awed, honoured and grateful to be part of the T’ai Chi Chih teaching community.

I had first found T’ai Chi Chih, or perhaps more accurately, T’ai Chi Chih had first found me, back in ’92-’93. From the beginning I had dreamed of being an accredited teacher.

Time, distance and other commitments had made it impossible early on for me to pursue my dream. I was 1000 miles away from the nearest teacher, but the dream was still strong. I felt I knew the basics, I had two videos and the books to work with, and I had a lot of enthusiasm, but no opportunity for regular 1-1 teaching and feedback. And then it happened!

In 2002 I retired from teaching in our school system and promptly went on-line for T’ai Chi Chih! I not only found the guidelines for accreditation but in my searching I also found an upcoming accreditation training date, as well as something called an “Intensive.” I wasn’t sure how “intensive” I wanted to get, especially after having just retired from being in school as teacher/administrator since 1969, but my dream edged me on. Little did I know then how key the Intensive would be on my journey.

My journey from then to now has been one amazing thing after another … no coincidence … as the path kept opening up before me! Not only were both events being held in New Jersey, but the host lived in Ocean Grove where I had first learned T’ai Chi Chih and where I still had occasion to visit. And New Jersey is much closer to Newfoundland than many other T’ai Chi Chih event sites!

I knew I had a lot of learning, relearning, and refining to do before going to accreditation training. Yet I was determined and up for the challenge. However, I learned, to my dismay at first, that determination wasn’t what it was all about. I learned how much I still needed to learn, compared to what I thought I knew. The “Intensive” I now term “Intensive Care,” as I see how it provided me with the guidance, support, encouragement and confidence I needed to move my dream forward. I simply needed to be open and willing and let it happen.

More than being just something of a dry run for accreditation training, (including helping to build stamina … it was indeed hard work!), the Intensive – and the days were just that – gave me the precious gift of quality T’ai Chi Chih time. Two key images come to mind when I recall my Intensive experience – that bread takes time to rise and jelly takes time to set … and you can’t force either before it’s ready. So, too, with our T’ai Chi Chih practice.

I learned that T’ai Chi Chih has a timing all its own and I couldn’t “make it happen,” and that it simply takes as long as it takes. As I became willing to allow my own practice to mature and deepen, I came to know at a deeper level that T’ai Chi Chih is about far more than learning the mechanics of the moves.

The Intensive was a mix of teaching, individual and group practice, partner work, and reflection, along with some fun time, of course! The experience took me inside the moves, took me inside the essence of T’ai Chi Chih, took me inside myself… to places I had never been … Justin’s “inner landscape.”

I came away from Intensive with a new sense of softness and continuity, of simply flowing, of flowing from the centre, and of letting go. The principles became more clear, more focused as I learned more about feeling the moves rather than simply doing them, and my own movements became softer and more refined.

We had a wonderful trainer, a wonderful host, wonderful accredited teachers who came to audit and support and encourage, and wonderful committed fellow students. I was awed to see seasoned teachers, including our trainer and host, still seeking to improve their own practice.

No matter how much I’ve learned or how much I’ve practiced, there is always so much more to discover, so much deeper to go … the teachers present modeled that beautifully. They were always willing to share, to learn, inviting feedback, sharing freely what they themselves were working on, and graciously accepting other peoples’ critiques. Theirs was a great testimony to the spirit of lifelong learning and growing, for teachers as much as for students.

T’ai Chi Chih has become a priceless gift in my life, and the intensive had only heightened my desire to share it, for it is still forever true, that “Sometimes to keep something you have to give it away.”

In summary, the Intensive took me deeper into the essence of T’ai Chi Chih that Justin speaks about so eloquently, and in the process it helped me discover yet another New-found-land which I continue to know and love more deeply. I know somehow that what I have found in T’ai Chi Chih is also there for others to discover for themselves in turn as I continue to invite them to share the gift and help them unwrap it through my teaching. The Intensive is another wonder-full way to that. I do hope more and more teachers will avail of the experience and encourage their students as well.

I’d like to end with a quote from the July 2003 Vital Force Journal, following my Intensive:

“For the first time I have some to experience and to understand the movements … as an integrated whole … and I have begun to more clearly and really experience the Chi. I leave more deeply committed to daily practice and to growing with it. The spirited atmosphere of these days, of the group, was key to all of the above being able to happen for me. Thank you so much, for so very much.”