What’s Inside Your Seated TCC Teaching Toolbox?

I have been teaching chair-assisted T’ai Chi Chih since the reopening of the Barnstable Adult Community Center on Cape Cod last summer, after pandemic restrictions were lifted on indoor activity. I began teaching TCC at the adult community center nine years ago, soon after moving from Albuquerque to the Cape, where I had spent my childhood.

What a blessing to return to teaching in familiar surroundings, where Cape Codders pursue their interests once again with wellness and healing practices. Before the COVID-19, the center offered classes in T’ai Chi Chih (which Debby McLister also taught), Therapeutic Qi Qong, Healing Sounds, Chair Yoga, and Meditation. Now we are slowly, joyfully recovering from two years of isolation.

Offering seated TCC has been a turning point in my teaching routine. I am now exploring what it feels like to experience the benefits of seated TCC along with my students. We are feeling powerful benefits of joy and calm, one class at a time.

I’m interested in how other TCC teachers apply holistic practices and about the tools in their toolboxes. Mine include:

• Seated T’ai Chi Chih, Sandy McAlister’s DVD and YouTube clip, is my go-to resource.

• Also helpful is an online video presentation by Deborah Rochman, for encouraging my students to practice at home. Deborah teaches in a rehabilitation and therapy facility in Massachusetts.

• In How to Protect your Body from Injury in Your T’ai Chi Chih Practice, a conference presentation by Sarah Nelson, I was struck by Sarah’s holistic approach to gentle healing techniques.

• I suggest teachers visit the 2021 conference video by presenters Sue Kenny, George Manning, and Linda Robinson: Exploring Seated T’ai Chi Chih. George shares his story of finding serenity and joy in seated TCC, and Sue and Linda offer invaluable insights into their work with seated TCC.

• The excellent presentation by Marie Dotts at the 2017 teacher conference on grounding has helped me look more deeply at posture and alignment, principles that also translate to seated practice.

• Music through my iPad and Bluetooth speaker offer soothing, non-distracting nature sounds. Try , a low-profile internet radio soundscape, or mindful chants from the Plum Village App.

What visual aids do teachers use to present the principles of TCC movements in the seated practice?

Sometime ago I invented Little Guy, a character who assists me with visualizing TCC movements in print/handout format. Little Guy, born in an iPad drawing app, claims to be a notch above stick figure art. (Stick figures are much easier to produce.)

It’s likely that I came up with the idea of utilizing figure illustration from various textbooks on martial arts and T’ai Chi. The illustration “seated forward/back weight shift” has been useful for visualizing the principles of movement, as an addition to written comments. The original is in two colors, so as to distinguish the guidelines from the rest of the drawing. Student practitioners have said that visuals help in the understanding of principles such as weight shift.

What’s in your toolbox?