The Wonders Of Teaching Children

Robert Montes de Oca and I have been teaching T’ai Chi Chih to kindergarten through 5th graders at a public school after-care program. For these young kids, my challenge is to keep them grounded. I ask them before each movement to feel their feet on the floor, to wiggle their toes. I focus on grounding before every movement, every week.

I think it is easier to have two groups of kids, divided by grades, for about 30 minutes each. (Older kids can handle 40-minutes.) Each week I have the kids sit down at the beginning of class, when I walk up to each of them, smile, look them in the eyes and have them tell me their names. I think it’s important to make a connection with each of them. Currently I’m teaching over 80 kids a week (in four classes of about 20 kids each).

We always begin moving with Rocking Motion. On the second class, I teach Six Healing Sounds, which they love. They seem to think learning ancient Chinese words for healing is really cool. For these elementary school kids, before a specific movement, I show them how their legs will be moving and then how their upper body will be moving. Then we put it all together. Kids can begin flowing quite quickly. For corrections, I make eye contact with the child, and ask him or her to watch how my legs and arms are moving. 

Kids seem to grasp the flow of the side-to-side movements easier than forward/backward movements. So I teach them Carry the Ball to the Side and Pulling Taffy (Basic).

With each 30-minute class, I review previous movements and introduce one new one. With that, I may teach them eight to nine movements over eight weeks. Given enough time, kids can learn all the movements. But I often skip the “taffy variations,” Working the Pulley and Passing Clouds since they are the most challenging for them. I ask kids sit to down half way through class, and I often tell them a Zen story from Justin’s CD, like about the man selling hats or the monk picking up the scorpion from the puddle.

I also tell the kids my TCC story. I think it is important for them to know why we do TCC. I tell them what other kids have told me about their TCC practices: that it makes them feel happy and calm, and that it can take their fears and nightmares away. I tell them about Justin Stone or show them a segment from the KNME Interview DVD with Carmen Brocklehurst. (They often ask to see more.) 

I think it’s very important to have the teacher or an assistant from school participate in the class. One teacher was surprised to feel her fingers tingle after the second class. I told her about the energy. Kids respond very positively when they hear their teacher is feeling TCC’s calming benefits. 

In one of my classes, an eight-year-old girl was very reluctantly doing TCC for the first few weeks, and by the third week she said she had a stomachache and wouldn’t be joining us. The next week I was really surprised though: she was moving so well and flowing. Her reluctance had disappeared. She asked if TCC could get rid of bad habits. I said yes. (I had not told the class that TCC practice could break bad habits; she had figured it out all by herself.)

Sometimes the kids may seem to not be paying attention, or don’t seem to want to do TCC, but wonderful things are happening within. TCC is teaching them TCC. The kids flow, but it may not be the same ones flowing each week. I do not under estimate the power of the Chi. My intention is to teach the movements correctly and see what wonderful things happen. When they seem most distracted, then I know it’s time for the Six Healing Sounds. Thanks, Justin, for this wonderful gift.

Pyramid Poetry (for Justin)

search

gently

inquiringly

knowledgeably

questioning

Justin

joy

– Barbie Fortune

just

moving

joyously

in to the zone

leaving out

some fear

Stone

– John F

there

Justin

feel soul ground

connect to Chi

everything

present

joy

– Mary Ruiz

feel

Justin

in the now

gentle essence

flowing within

being

still

– Mary White

Stone

stillness

from one time

felt @ the pause

a gem of

quiet space

joy

– Shar

just

in time

you came to

me, my spiritual

heaven sent guide

go meet

God

– Bo, Atlanta

his

voice is

silent now

but always will

I hear his

guidance

still

– Jerry Granok