Tai Chi Master For a Day

We are halfway through our current "semester" in our psychosocial rehab clinic for the seriously mentally ill. We've had some staffing issues pop up over the past few weeks, so I've stepped in to teach an extra class on body-centered healing modalities. I was told that there's a folder with lesson plans for each class, so I showed up a few minutes before class last week to get the folder, only to find that the lesson that week was "Hypnosis." I started class with a progressive relaxation exercise that my mom taught me when I was little and having a hard time falling asleep. My mom is a nurse, and went through a bit of a hippie phase in the late 70's (in a non-marijuana-smoking, non-free-love, non-Jimi-Hendrix, totally-straightlaced, Lamaze-teaching, shopping-at-a-food-co-op, and making-her-kids-eat-carob-chip-cookies kind of way).

We followed up the progressive muscle relaxation with my reading a hypnosis script, doing my best to sound hypnotic, directing them to ascend a staircase with ten steps into a place of deep relaxation. It was actually a really cool class, and I for one felt way more relaxed afterwards.

The topic for tomorrow is "Tai Chi" and the topic for next week is "Yoga." Obviously I'm all over the yoga lesson. The fact that I know nothing about the philosophy or the physical exercise of Tai Chi is somewhat worrisome. Part of me wants to say screw it, and just do Tae Bo instead.

But the other part of me wants to learn the routine on this short video & teach the moves. Then maybe we could come up with our own peaceful, flowing moves, and each student can take turns leading the rest of the class. Sounds peaceful & groovy to me!