TCC Presentation: Look Who’s Talking

The Art of Teaching

By Ellen Tatge, Albuquerque, NM

I was asked to talk to the employee “wellness” program delegates in the Presbyterian Hospital System at their monthly meeting. When I got up, I asked how much time I had and was told “five minutes.” It was clear to me that the only way to convey the power of T’ai Chi Chih in such a short time frame was to simply do the movements, so after a couple of introductory sentences, I did two movements. Midway through, there was the feeling that the room and its habitants took a sigh of relief as people relaxed in reponse to the movements. In a conversation later with the program director, she said, “Ellen, that was a very impressive presentation! Everyone was very excited about it.” I have received numerous calls as a result of this brief presentaion. I would counsel anyone doing presentaions to remember to “let T’ai Chi Chih do the talking.”