The Power of Chi: A Witness and Healing Time

Vivian Hoff, Eagan, MN

Today: April 1, and everyone knows the social take on this day. But there was no fooling in my T’ai Chi Chih class at the Linwood Community Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. The class is one offered to senior persons in that community. During the past six days I had been desperately combating a dreadful head and respiratory infection. Source unknown. When I arrived for the class (the last in the series) Patti, a very good friend and colleague from our days as coordinators and home economics teachers in the St. Paul Schools asked me if I felt all right – she could tell by “the way I walked in”. She spread the word and tried to get consensus that I go back home to rest. Another class member commented that in a class she had taken the teacher finished with a broken foot. Oh well!

Class began with a time for breath and preparation for practicing T’ai Chi Chih. Soon my balance corrected, my mind and all within my cranium cleared with no need to cough. Another student observed my aura — green/blue. As the group meditatively worked through the moves, the CHI cultivated by all 20 of us took over. Now, we all know that a class of senior beginners in T’ai Chi Chih does not arrive at the last session accomplished in all of the moves, but believe me there was an undisputed cultivation of CHI. There was a rhythm in the lifting of feet and placing them onto the wooden floor of the dance studio we use.

I was practicing T’ai Chi Chih in the “chaos”, i.e., the state of right and left, yin and yang – all around me. The students are precious. They always do their best. We laugh. We practice, practice, practice! Today we all clapped hands for each other.

Patti [the friend I spoke about above] is in the class because she had a stroke several months ago. This was her second class, and her husband says she has healed remarkably. Though Patti had to leave class early – (she lost her balance), when I called her in the evening to inquire about her situation she remarked, “I saw how you changed during class, your face brightened and you kept on going.” She was a witness [to the change that the CHI brings about]. She is committed to T’ai Chi Chih as a segment in her recovery and way of life.

The T’ai Chi Chih word for the day on the board was “To know CHI is to know one of the greatest secrets in life.” It is that indeed.