Update from Hawaii’s Big Island

My handful of students continue to practice here in my yoga shed three times a week. We are mostly very reclusive and pretty much keep social distance, so we are not concerned about transmitting COVID-19. There is no hugging or touching, and in town all businesses require masks and people social distance. I am doing more T’ai Chi Chih than ever while waiting outside to enter businesses that are keeping indoor customers to a minimum. Hawaii has one of the lowest infection rates and no deaths.

I no longer teach my downtown classes, but I am doing some private sessions for people with cancer, double mastectomies, deep vein thrombosis, etc. One is the woman who hooked me up eight years ago with recently released offenders who were so enthusiastic about TCC.

I am also spending time with a fellow community organizer with whom I worked for two decades. I saw her a few months ago and was very surprised to learn that she had end-stage cancer. She was in resident hospice but has now moved back to her little town of Pahoa, a 40-minute drive from here. I do a little body and energy work on her.

COVID-19 has interrupted the new class I was conducting with Easter Seal staff and Down Syndrome program participants. About seven of them were coming to my Monday class at the park and I was scheduled to offer a class at their facility just as we went into lockdown here. Social distancing and wearing masks are very compatible with TCC, especially since we can do classes outside year-round here.

I am so grateful for TCC because it has added so much to the quality of my life, not just because of the benefits of the practice, but because of the wonderful people I have met at every stage during the past 35 years.