Newsletter #88 - December 2008

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I have been teaching at a beautiful retirement community since 1999, the year I was certified by Dr. Lam as an instructor in the Tai Chi for Arthritis Program. At that time, Dr Lam was teaching all the TCA certification workshops, and he was inspiring! I left the training confident in being able to include TCA into my already on-going qigong classes.

My class at the retirement home could now enjoy a Tai Chi form as well as Tai Chi walking to improve balance while gaining muscle strength and flexibility, and improving coordination, and focus. The qigong class had given a solid foundation in posture, breath and intention, and the transition to Tai Chi was easy and relaxing, but more challenging than the follow along qigong movements. Although, we still did qigong, the sets were more like warm-ups and the warm-ups were more like qigong, as we continued to learn TCA. This group, ages starting at 80 when they learned the entire TCA set, would accompany me to demonstrate at events. At the Arthritis Foundation, World Tai Chi Day, Hospitals and re-hab centres, their bus would pull up, and the ‘over 80’ crowd would disembark with canes, a few on walkers, which they would put aside to join me in a demonstration that would WOW the crowd. Then they would pick up their canes and use their walkers to get back to the bus that took them back to the retirement community.

We did this for a few years; my 80 yr olds started turning 90 – and some students were out for a few classes, some we missed for months as hospitalizations, and bouts with other afflictions of old age interfered with their weekly class. But no matter what; a broken ankle, a heart attack, whatever kept them away for a time, they came back. And when some returned they needed to sit down for part of the class. I had always taught this class with chairs beside each participant, and had always encouraged anyone who needed to sit down, to do so; but no one ever did for the first few years; then one by one more of the chairs became occupied until one day I looked out and the whole class was sitting down – I sat down too. And that’s when I ‘accidently’ started teaching TCA in the chair. The universe provided me with the circumstances to explore teaching seated TCA, and it has opened up endless possibilities and improved my own Tai Chi. It has given the students such pleasure and happiness in knowing that they will be able to continue their beloved Tai Chi class well into their ninth decade. 

We are learning something new together, these 90yr olds and I. When seated we are all a little more relaxed and focused on the coordination of movement of the arms and the legs, the shoulder and the hip, the knee and the elbow, the wrist and the ankle. We can feel, when we push down into the floor with the ball of the foot, how it engages the knee, and the hip joint, while building thigh muscles. We can spend more time on watching our hands manifest the movements, than worrying about staying upright on our feet. We still do a little Tai Chi walking, but now all Tai Chi at this on-going class is done seated - and we’re getting more and more new students joining the class as word spread about how strong you feel doing Tai Chi seated, and how Tai Chi  improves balance, while sitting in a chair. Of course, that means sitting in a chair properly. When we sit up away from the back of the chair, it helps to build core strength, and it gives the abdomen more room to expand outward when taking a deep breath.

There are many benefits of teaching Seated TCA, some which I’ve sighted, but this tale of a student sighting might be even more insightful : One day a lady loudly exclaimed “Look at my Hands,  you can see my QI  !!

By being more relaxed, the benefits are more profound. I feel my Qi, too, and know that teaching Seated TCA, makes it a possibility for me to teach Tai Chi well into my 90s!

It has been a learning, evolving, truly inspirational journey into the many uses for TCA.