There I Am

This drawing was done by Lewis Rubenstein, an artist who lives at Wake Robin Retirement Community in Shelburne, Vermont.

Each Saturday morning from January through April, I held a beginning T’ai Chi Chih class in their community room. There are approximately 220 people who live at this facility which looks like a college campus. Between 23 and 18 people attended the weekly sessions.

I thought the drawing was interesting as it shows some of the residents doing T’ai Chi Chih while sitting in chairs. There were two people in my class who were in their 90’s. They said they were getting too old for aerobic classes. While most of the participants came because they were looking for a gentle form of exercise, a few did develop a sense that T’ai Chi Chih offered more than exercise.

Many reported that their sense of balance had improved and one student exclaimed after class that she had suddenly started “feeling the ground” in the soles of her feet. Beaming, she said she had a sense of “there I am.”

I have enjoyed the class thoroughly as it was one of the first I started teaching after I received my certification in late 1994 in San Diego. It was a little intimidating to find that over half of the class had visited China and had seen t’ai chi being practiced in the parks and other public places.