Isak Dineson said: “When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself.”
In February 2017, I had a great and difficult task. My partner in tai chi and in Life, Bob Plyler, died unexpectedly of a genetic disorder that we were unaware of until two days prior to his death. Bob and I had been tai chi teaching partners for 10 years and shared a marriage of 46 years. We’d been best friends since 7th grade. Two years into the teaching process, having been certified in TCA, we formed our own Tai Chi for Health business. In 2014, we invited Dr. Lam to participate in a workshop in Asheville – his first in NC. It proved so successful that Dr. Lam wanted to return in 2017 for his June week-long conference. This year, he’ll be making his third trip to Asheville in October during the beautiful fall leaf season. Visit the USTCC Events Page to learn more.
Every year, our program seeks to add something new to our offerings in the Asheville area. Learning Tai Chi for Heart Conditions at the June 2019 pre-conference made it possible to continue that tradition, in a town that has a huge heart facility in our local hospital. I was anxious about doing a new program without Bob, but receiving the scholarship made my trip to Cincinnati possible and gave me the confidence to follow through on our long term goal, even in his absence. With Dr. Lam’s return, we hope to make the medical community here cognizant of the other Tai Chi for Health offerings.
My task – learning the 24 Form well enough to teach it – initially seemed to me like another great and difficult task. The experience of learning it at the June 2019 Week -Long Conference – working a little every day, proved just the thing to gaining the confidence necessary to accomplish my goal of being able to teach it. Master Trainer, Linda Ebeling, with her patience and persistent reinforcement of correct moves, broke the movements into small bites each day. It was just what I needed to feel comfortable enough to later teach the form on my return to Asheville. I’ve been teaching 3 hour-long classes of 24 Form each week since my return, at WNC Tai Chi for Health, the organization my husband and I began in 2010. The enthusiasm of our participants is the icing on the cake, as they too work a little each day to meet their goal of learning this lovely form.
Receiving the scholarship from USTCC meant the world to me. My colleague, Linda Schlinsker and I attended the week-long conference / 24 Form sessions together. Linda, who had once been our student, later became one of our best instructors. She received the first Bob Plyler Memorial Scholarship we established, partially with funds donated to our organization by one of our local gerontologists, using the award to attend Dr. Lam’s Master Class in the 73 Form in California in 2017. Linda then returned to teach this faithfully every series to our participants along with the 24 Form. The week after the 2019 conference from Asheville to Minneapolis, she was moving, and I did not want the program she so expertly initiated to vanish with her move. I was determined to be able to teach it in her absence. This has come to pass.
With Bob and Linda no longer available to teach in our program, we’ve taken on two other instructors and thus can continue the good work that they began, continuing both the 24 Form and the 73 Form classes along with TCA 1&2, Tai Chi for Memory and Tai Chi for Heart Conditions. Meanwhile, I understand that Linda has taken her tai chi expertise to a Veterans Program in Minneapolis and continues to collaborate with Linda Ebling and other tai chi enthusiasts in the Minneapolis area to share their passion for tai chi – truly the gift that keeps on giving.