The Lighter Side (October 2003)

1. One day a student decided to practice with her husband. She put on nice soothing music that had the sound of a waterfall. Unfortunately, her husband became agitated with the music. Turns out he didn’t find the sound of running water soothing at all. He’s a plumber.

– Sharon Sirkis

2. In the first T’ai Chi Chih class I taught many years ago, two of my students were great punsters who liked to give the movements nicknames based on the use of the word “chi.” One of the most memorable was the renaming of “Passing Clouds” to “Past-your-eyes-chis.”

– Jean Katus

3. Early in the class series I was “quizzing” the students about the T’an T’ien. I said “Does anyone remember that special place below the navel, the motor for the movements? What is it called?”

I had to further prompt and said something like, “It is an important motivator for all the movements.”

One older student said, “Ah, you mean the bowels.”

– Debbie Cole

4. During the last day of teacher training at lunch, exhausted [auditing] TCC teacher Athene Mantle had trouble getting the words she wanted to say out of her mouth. It was just coming out babble. Looking to me for some kind of help, I said, laughing, “It’s not the bubbling spring, it’s the babbling spring!”

– Sharon Sirkis

5. One thing I like to do when I audit a teacher training course, is to bring enough of my TCC brochures for the teacher candidates to each have one. One teacher candidate, Alla, of Russian descent, handed my brochure back to me.

“Can I have your autograph?”, she asked.

Somewhat puzzled, I took pen in hand and honored her request. Apparently she thought my puzzled look was something else.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I won’t turn you over to the KGB.”

– Sharon Sirkis

6. Recently, when I taught at the retirement community, I asked one lady in her late 80’s, “What keeps you going? What do you look forward to? What makes you get out of bed in the morning?”

She quickly responded, “What makes me get out of the bed every morning is so I don’t wet the bed!”

– Sharon Sirkis