Former professor teaches moving meditation
Terry Puckett teaches a moving meditation called T’ai Chi Chih in a game room with gray flagstone walls.
“It encompasses everyone,” Puckett, 84, said of the international movement. “It does adjust you mentally. You learn to let things pass through you and over you and to concentrate on what you’re doing.”
For eight weeks, she’s taught seniors at her Monday morning class at Lion’s Field Adult and Senior Center on Broadway. Before a recent class started, each member read a quote related to the art from an index card. Affirmations included “Chi is energy” and “Float like a butterfly flying across a pool of rippling water.”
“You are never too old to set a new goal or dream a new dream,” Melinda Lange, 71, read.
“Amen,” said Ruth Madorsky, 85, wearing a T-shirt with a Batman logo.
Puckett started the class with the “ping” of a tiny meditation gong. Standing in a circle, they followed Puckett through 19 movements and one pose. They shifted their weight back and forth and side to side. Students pushed their palms forward as if pushing through heavy air. Then they turned their palms over and began to pull back.
T’ai Chi Chih means “knowledge of the supreme ultimate.”
This was the last session of her class, where students sought improved energy, focus, health, posture, creativity and less stress.
Puckett, 84, has taught the non-martial art to a wide range of students for more than 20 years. She’s taught with Explore Amazing Places in Central America, churches, Haven for Hope, private homes and public parks. During the pandemic, she offered classes via Zoom online.
In 1999, Puckett learned the art from Sister Alice Holden at Re-barn, a retirement facility at Incarnate Word, after she retired as a professor of art at St. Philip’s College.
An avid traveler, Puckett envisioned teaching her friends the art in Guatemala on a helicopter pad, across from volcanoes and floating clouds at Lake Atitlan. Her dream would become a reality.
In November 2001, Puckett became an accredited instructor. She attended a week-long training class in Albuquerque, New Mexico, attended by Justin Stone, who developed T’ai Chi Chih. In 1969, Stone, after learning Tai Chi Ch’uan in the orient, realized the form would be more doable for Western civilization and developed the new form, simplifying it from 108 movements to 19 movements and one pose.
At the end of the class, the students shared why they took up the art.
Alison Beam, 58, found it hard to meditate while staying still. The movements helped her find peace and calm.
Professional sculptor Donna Dobberfuhl said the classes helped her relax after intense days of creating art. Her fulllife sculptures are installed across the nation and locally, including bronze animals at the San Antonio Zoo and longhorn at Redbird Ranch. She plans to sign up for Puckett’s next class.
Madorsky, 85, said T’ai Chi Chih has lowered her blood pressure when she’s become angry. That was the case at a doctor’s appointment when the physician was late to the clinic. If a passer-by had looked through the cracked exam room door, they would have seen Madorsky in her stance, circling positive energy with her hands.
Lange enjoyed learning how to improve her posture. She plans to share the philosophy and quotations of the art with her grandchildren.
Years ago, while attending graduate school in Austin, Denise Richter, 61, first saw the art in action. The retired professor emerita of journalism recalled sitting beside an older Chinese man on a bus that passed people practicing Tai Chi in a park.
“That’s really interesting,” she said. “I don’t know what it is.”
“That’s Tai Chi,” he said. “It saved my life.”
The man said he grew up in China during a great famine when food was scarce. Practicing Tai Chi helped keep his life force alive.
“That’s an endorsement,” she said. “I thought, ‘I need to learn more about this.’ Now that I’m retired, here I am.”
Richter’s husband, Blair, 65, a bio-chemist, said he felt energy between his hands and balance in his body. He called Puckett an original apostle of Stone, the founder of the art that helped the class find peace in their lives.
Puckett’s next T’ai Chi Chih class starts at 10 a.m. on March 27 at Lions Field. For more information, call Lion’s Field at 210-207-5380 or email Puckett at terrygpuckett@me.com.