The Yoga Mat Was a Clue
Years ago, a woman arrived at one of my Tai Chi classes carrying a yoga mat.
There was nothing wrong with that, of course.
But the Tai Chi I was teaching didn't involve a mat. Most of our time was spent on our feet, learning movements and trying to put them together.
I don't know exactly what she expected when she walked in. Looking back, though, I think the mat was a clue.
I had spent several years teaching Tai Chi as part of my former teacher's program. The instruction was traditional, focused on learning the choreographed movements of a particular style.
When I began teaching independently in 1997, I kept much of that approach at first, offering classes in eight- to ten-week sessions.
But I kept seeing the same pattern.
Many students came for two or three classes, perhaps a few more, and then stopped. Some completed the full session but didn't return.
When I talked with people who had quit, two difficulties came up repeatedly. Remembering the sequences was hard. And even when students could remember what came next, their bodies weren't always comfortable with the turning, shifting, twisting, and small adjustments that Tai Chi required.
Three women put their disappointment into a sentence I still remember:
"We thought this would be more like yoga."
That wasn't what I had set out to teach.
But I began to wonder whether it was closer to what some students needed at the beginning.
What if I started with movements they could learn independently, without having to remember a long sequence? Movements that stretched and rotated the joints, helped them get comfortable moving, and gave them a chance to feel some of the ease and energy that had attracted them to Tai Chi in the first place?
I began experimenting with Qigong exercises that could do those things. I still wanted to prepare students for Tai Chi, but I no longer assumed that learning Tai Chi choreography had to be the first step.
And then another question began shaping the classes.
What if someone came to only one lesson?
What could I teach that would be useful even if they never came back? If they returned for a second lesson, what would be the next helpful thing to offer? And the third?
Instead of thinking only about where I hoped students would be after ten weeks, I started paying more attention to what they could take away from the evening they were actually there.
We tried different Qigong styles and gradually found a sequence that worked. The Eight Brocades became the foundation of our first ten-week level. Their mostly independent arm and leg movements were relatively easy to learn and gave students a chance to work with stretching and joint movement right away.
I also liked two exercises called Constant Bear and Reverse Bear. For a while, I wanted to teach them first, because I thought they might be the best exercises for someone to learn if they were going to learn only one thing.
But the Bears demanded more coordination through the torso, along with careful knee alignment. They weren't quite as easy for beginners as I'd imagined. Eventually, we moved them into the second level.
That was a useful discovery for me as a teacher. The exercise I considered most valuable wasn't necessarily the best exercise to teach first.
Over time, these experiments became the foundation of ChiFusion Tai Chi and Qigong.
Students could continue into more involved practices if they wanted.
But the early lessons weren't simply stepping stones to the later ones.
They had something worthwhile to offer on their own.
I couldn't know whether someone would attend one class, five classes, or stay for years. A carefully planned course couldn't decide that for them.
What I could do was try to make each lesson useful to the person who showed up for it.
I still think about that yoga mat now and then.
It might have meant something quite different to the woman carrying it. But together with what those three women told me, it helped me recognize something I'd been missing.
I had been thinking about everything I wanted to teach.
Instead, I needed to pay more attention to where the students were starting from.