TCC in Amsterdam

T’ai Chi Chih (TCC) is going global and is benefiting more and more practitioners. Since December 2022, one more country has been added to the list of countries where TCC is being taught. Orly Mani and I were accredited by Sandy in the UK and brought TCC across the Channel to the Netherlands. We have since established three groups of students.

Orly is teaching once a week in a community center and once a week in her massage studio (or the park if the weather allows). I teach a weekly class to a group of seniors through Jewish social work. This class is so popular that we may have to start a second group soon.

I was not new to TCC when we started. I had been practicing on and off during the last 30 years. I learned about it during my one year stay in Florida in 1991 and immediately fell in love. One Monday evening, during sunset on Siesta Key Beach, I saw a small group of people doing TCC led by Diana Daffner. Afterwards I met Diana and her husband, and we became very close friends. I returned to Siesta Key many times in the last 34 years, talking about accreditation often, until it finally happened in 2022. The COVID lockdowns helped many to focus on our priorities and lifelong wishes.

In 2020, during COVID I started the process of accreditation. I contacted all the European teachers listed on the website and received only one reply, from Lesley Nell in the UK. She was teaching British students on Zoom and invited me to join. Orly was immediately interested and so we started learning with Lesley and her students. Lesley has been the most patient and caring teacher. For two years she taught us everything we needed to know to be teachers. We were also hosted and treated like queens while staying in Oxfordshire for the Intensive and the Accreditation Course. Here in the Netherlands, we share our practice in real life, learn from each other, and help each other by substituting whenever one is out of town. The weekly groups can then continue year around.

We hope to start more groups in the coming year and to encourage some of our students to prepare for teacher training. Last year we recorded a video in the Amstelpark. Find it on YouTube or Google: “Orly and Marcella T’ai Chi Chih full practice.”