The Lighter Side (July 2002)

1. At the hospital where I work and now teach a T’ai Chi Chih class, an interesting group formed one afternoon. An elder woman in a wheelchair was wheeled into the circle and she proceeded to talk and pull her purse apart. I started leading everyone through Rocking Motion and she stopped working on her purse. Later she picked up on the words — if I said “Your palms are facing each other” she would say “Oh, that looks like palm trees swaying in Hawaii.” When we were doing Pulling in the Energy she said that looked like “rock-a-bye-baby in the tree top” and proceeded to sing rock-a-bye-baby to us as we did the movement. One of the other persons in the circle with a serious mental health diagnosis was having trouble following how to move so the elder told her, “Focus, dear.”

– Nancy Jo Bleier

2. During our time of sharing at the end of a class, one of the students was having a hard time remembering the name of the pose that we did at the end and wasn’t sure about the weight distribution. Before I could answer her concerns, another student piped up with a good explanation for what she called “Cosmic Kick-stand.”

– Debbie Cole

3. One morning while teaching seated TCC class at the retirement community, one of the ladies stood up and walked out before the class was even over.

“I’m sorry to leave early,” she said, “but both of my hearing aid batteries have just gone dead.”

“That’s OK,” I said, laughing, “Sometimes people try to shut me up or tune me out, but this is a new way to do it!”

– Sharon Sirkis

4. At the end of last year’s teachers’ conference, Justin asked me, “So where do you go from here?”

Somewhat surprised to be asked such a deep question, I said, “You mean in my practice?”

“No,” he replied, “which airport are you flying home to?”

– Sharon Sirkis

5. I had some very enthusiastic students who wanted to learn everything “yesterday.” After the free demo class, both of these women, each named Carol, wanted me to show them the moves I had demonstrated, yet again. One of them piped up to her friend after some debate about being able to remember what they had been shown and said, “By next week you will probably be doing T’ai Chi Carol instead of T’ai Chi Chih [practice].”

– Debbie Cole

6. When I taught Pulling in the Energy to the college class, I reminded them how important it was to ground the chi because of Justin’s experience with a shock to his heart.

The following week I reviewed the move and asked, “Pulling in the Energy is the only move that…?”

Expecting a response having to do with visualization of the energy, I was taken aback when a student answered, “That…gives you a heart attack!”

– Sharon Sirkis