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Tai Chi at Kindergarten - Suzette Hosken |
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 Suzette Hosken addressing Kinder
The large group of children was divided into two groups of twelve and thirteen - in part to give us more room, but mainly to facilitate the children’s concentration. They are very easily distracted by each other at this age. I would have been very easily distracted, too, if I had been put in front of twenty-five children!
I took with me the poster of Eng Chor performing levels one and two and showed this to the children. I explained that Senior Master Eng Chor Khor taught me tai chi and that he was very, very good at his tai chi, very strong and very fit. The children giggled at Eng Chor’s name andappreciated that this was a very traditional Chinese name! I also talked about how important it was to show the proper manners to your instructor. At four and five, the children don’t fully understand the concept of respect, so I talked about manners and politeness instead. This they understood very well. I showed them how to make a fist with your left hand, and to place the right hand on top before leaning into a gentle bow, which they all did beautifully. By now I had everyone’s attention and our lesson was well underway.
We looked at some of the postures on the poster, and then I showed the children level one while talking through the moves. They liked the idea of stroking a very big bird, and of pushing closed a very heavy door. By now the children were ready to get up and join in, up they leapt and did what I call the ‘tai chi shuffle’ - that motion where the whole group shuffles about before finding the right position - I think we all do this!
 Butterfly flaps wings
Next we performed ‘dancing with the rainbow’ and imagined the big, lovely rainbow that we were creating. Following the rainbow, we ‘gathered and separated the clouds’ and then ‘turned to look at the moon’. Turning to look at the moon was the trickiest movement to that point, as the children had to take their eyes off me in order to complete the move, but they really did very well. We finished the Shibashi with the final closing move. These children followed the movements as well as any group of adults I’ve seen.
By this point some of the children were starting to look wistfully out the windows, so I whipped out my fan and opened it up with a loud ‘crack’.
That got their attention back again. ‘Would you like to see some of the fan routine?’ I asked. ‘YES!’ was the reply, accompanied by vigorously nodding heads and wide eyes. I demonstrated the first third or so of the routine, with some modifications to ensure I stayed within the available space. When I started the routine the children started smiling; when I opened the fan for the first time, many started giggling; by the time I’d thrown in a scissor kick and tossed the fan a couple of times, many were laughing their heads off! Thankfully I’d been around this group of kids long enough to know that they were really a lovely bunch and were not deliberately trying to put me off my game! The teacher described this reaction as typical nervous or uneasy behaviour. The children had never seen anything like the fan routine before and many didn’t know what to make of it at first, so they laughed. Of course, once one started laughing, then the whole lot followed. It really was interesting to watch. Despite their slightly nervous reactions, it was clear that every child was fascinated by and enjoyed watching the fan routine.
I talked about how wonderful it was to see a big group of us doing fan and how loud the sound was when we all opened the fans at the same time. I also told them about how we all dropped our fans when we were first learning to toss them, and that was why I had all the rough bits at the bottom of my fan. They enjoyed hearing this and it gave the teacher the opening to emphasize to the children that we only become good at an activity when we practice it. This is something we all could be reminded of at times: It is okay to be ordinary when we start to learn something new, be it level one, the fan, or, in the children’s case, learning to write their names. We all need to practice when we learn new things, no matter how young or old we are.
I closed the sessions with another salute, which the children mirrored back to me before bounding out the door to go and play. I bounded out the door too; it really was a wonderful experience. Four-year-old Patrick topped the morning off nicely when he sincerely told me: ‘Thanks for showing us the fan and stuff’!
- Suzette Hosken
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Last Updated ( Friday, 16 March 2007 )
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