Zero to One Hundred Percent (almost) through T’ai Chi Chih

Teacher Training week here in Albuquerque in mid-November was a singular experience. It was a week of being surrounded by and showered with love from Justin, Sandy, Pam, Sister Antonia, all the teachers who traveled from near and far to be with and to help us, fellow students from near and far who offered only kind words and encouragement, and family and friends who prayed for me and took care of things I normally do. It is impossible to synopsize or synthesize the teacher training experience into an article for the Vital Force and I am somewhat reluctant to even attempt to do so. Something will be left out. Someone will be neglected. It is impossible to describe in words from the English language that which is indescribable. It reminds me of the many descriptions of and attempts to describe “chi.”

There is probably one thing on which most everybody would agree and that is that the most compelling part of my Presentation was my personal story. So that is what I shall relate to you now.

Fifteen years ago, I was living in Phoenix, AZ and working at a full-time job, taking care of a house and pets, doing volunteer work for several organizations, working out five days a week, and leading an active social life. In mid-November, I became ill with the flu or some other virus and spent several days sick at home. When I returned to work, however, my past pattern of gradually regaining my strength and good health did not transpire. I just got sick again, to the point that I had to go home and do nothing but rest. After several days I felt better and went back to work but never really got back to my previous state of “normal.” By mid-morning, I’d be too tired to support myself in an upright position in my chair and would have to slump in it so that my neck and head would be supported by the chair. At lunch, I’d retreat to the back seat of my car to try to nap or rest. By mid-afternoon, all pretenses of work would be obliterated as I’d lie down on the floor next to my chair, completely spent. Needless to say, these actions were not normal for this heretofore Type A, overachieving person.

Two months of this behavior were enough to convince me to resign and five months later I was officially diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which was often referred to in the journalistic publications of the day as the “Yuppie Flu.” And, indeed, it did feel like the worst flu I’d ever had except it didn’t go away. Getting out of bed in the morning was a major accomplishment. Halfway through a breakfast bowl of milk and Cheerios, I’d be exhausted from the effort of eating and my free hand would rise to my lower jaw and push against it, trying to help my mouth chew and swallow a few more spoonfuls. The cognitive portion of my brain was so impaired that at times it would sound as if people were speaking in foreign languages to me. New concepts or new-to-me everyday situations were especially prone to throw my brain into overload so that I could not understand what the prospective plumber, the accountant, or the friend with an exciting story to share was saying. At one point, I went to an acupuncturist and he was unable to find my chi pulse. I felt and looked like a dead person. I used to say my life went to zero.

Over the next few years, I gradually regained about 30 or 40 percent of my previous capabilities through very limited walking, rest, sensory deprivation, herbs and vitamins, stringent diet (no sugar, salt, caffeine, wheat, dairy, alcohol, etc.). I remarried and in 1994 moved to Albuquerque.

Within a couple years of moving to Albuquerque, I became aware of T’ai Chi Chih through reading the UNM Continuing Education catalogue. I would read the descriptions of so many classes that sounded interesting, and which I only dreamed of taking some day. TCC was one of those classes. I convinced myself that I wasn’t physically capable of enrolling and just went on trying to increase the amount of time (by a minute a month) and number of days a week when I could take a walk and not suffer a back-into-bed-fulltime relapse.

My energy level was bouncing around between 40 and 50 percent. Then T’ai Chi Chih came to me. On occasional Sundays when I had sufficient energy to do so, I’d attend a church. Two years ago, in mid-November again, the church was offering a variety of classes after services on two consecutive Sundays. TCC was one of the classes and I signed up.

Doug Harned was the teacher who gave me my first TCC lesson. He didn’t have a specific recollection of me in that class when I asked him two years later, but that class changed my life. We learned Rocking Motion, Around the Platter and the Variation, and Bass Drum. And I felt different inside during the very first class. Normally a painfully shy person who’d made it through elementary and high school without ever raising her hand to answer or ask a question, I found myself in Doug’s class making spontaneous comments out loud, making jokes, just being so unlike the person I’d always been in the world.

The next week, Victor Berg was my teacher and we added only Cosmic Consciousness Pose to our repertoire, but the same thing happened. I found myself almost giddy with joy, making humorous comments, and feeling a sort of freedom and lightness inside. Like Doug, Victor didn’t remember me from this class either, but I took what they had said to heart and kept doing the movements that I’d learned most every day, and two months later I had enough self-confidence to enroll in Carmen Brocklehurst’s Beginner’s Class through the UNM Continuing Education program.

For the next two years, I took as many classes as I could, and living here in Albuquerque at the epicenter of TCC, we are fortunate to be able to partake of many classes and opportunities with many qualified and dedicated teachers.

Over these past two years my energy level has increased to about a 60 percent sustained level. More importantly to me, my stamina has increased so that I can make it through most days without a nap. The thought of the weeklong Teacher Training class, which I’d heard was challenging and intense, seemed daunting and I wasn’t sure I could withstand it physically. An auto accident (not my fault) in July finally convinced me that I should enroll in the Teacher Training class and so I did.

In mid-November of this year I was certified to teach T’ai Chi Chih. This certification brings with it many thoughts—it is an honor, a responsibility, a recognition, a duty—but given where I was not so very long ago, it is something else to me personally. It is the tangible evidence that I had been at zero and have struggled back to earn something of inestimable value. It speaks to the power and steadfastness of the circulation and balancing of the chi and the importance of trust in the chi. It encompasses the love and dedication of the sincere TCC teachers who offered me corrections, encouragement, insight, and help to the extent I was able to comprehend it. It is a symbol or a license, if you will, to continue on this lifelong journey of learning about TCC, of deepening my practice of TCC, of sharing my joy of TCC with others in such a manner that they will be inspired to make TCC a part of their lives. For me, this certificate is a birth certificate. Once again, I feel as if I am among the living, able to withstand the challenges life has in store and thrive. I still have a long way to go but with TCC part of me and my daily life now, there appears to be a future of giving and doing rather than solely being. Thank you, Justin, for the gift you have given the world.