About Me
I first encountered tai chi in the late 1960s during the early morning hours in Honolulu’s Kapiolani Park. As a white high school student interested mostly in running and surfing, the slow trance-like movements of older Asian men and women were a curiosity but not one that prompted me to investigate further. The future looked bright and I wanted to step on the gas and get on with my life. Little did I know that 50 years later I would be practicing tai chi daily. At first I assumed that this was just a sensible reaction to sore knees and hips and my geographical separation from a dependable ocean swell. But I now realize that what I once sought, and occasionally found, through running and surfing was the same thing that tai chi now brings within reach and perhaps soon reliably in my grasp: focused comfort in the moment. In short, it makes me happy.
After high school, I went to college on the mainland and then returned to Hawaii to study oceanography and work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Later I taught science and math in grades 5-12 in upstate New York and in northern Italy. Further academic pursuits led to a PhD based on studies into the control of release of stress hormones. This was followed by over 20 years as a biomedical research administrator. My travels have taken me to 46 states and 20 countries and my two (now quasi-adult) children have probably seen half of those.
In the late 1990s, I began an on-again, off-again affair with aikido. This exquisitely powerful yet non-aggressive martial art with its fluid, circular motions and emphasis on timing and positioning intrigued me greatly. Unfortunately, my body's method of succumbing to gravity never suggested to even the most generous observer that the "art of falling" was a concept with which I had any familiarity. Still, aikido, the "way of harmony", increased my interest in other internal martial arts and I began to eavesdrop on different kinds of classes. This led to a morning doing tai chi in the woods with a small group of mostly beginners. I remember that the instructor led us in one exercise that seemed to do wonders for my sore back and enabled me to keep running. For that reason alone, I returned the next week. Six years and many classes and several teachers later, I have learned a lot but remain first and foremost a student. While I have some ideas and enthusiasm to share, tai chi remains mostly personal and an exquisite adventure for a guy who sees the future as bright and who wants to take his foot off the gas and get on with his life.
---Charlie Hathaway