What people are saying about Birthing Life T’ai-Chi
Statements by students at the Birthing Life T’ai-Chi Center

Gary Erickson     Rob Grunewald     George Laskaris     Mary Manke     Morgan Austin     Barbara Ziegenhagen

I have been a T’ai-Chi student for 24 years. In my various relocations from Minneapolis to New Jersey/New York, to Colorado, and back to Minneapolis, I have been fortunate to have studied with some of the most respected T’ai-Chi teachers in the country. Most of them are students or second generation students of Cheng Man-Ching.

Robert Larsen has now been added to my list of exceptional teachers. He goes beyond teaching the form and holding positions, with a unique positive way of communicating and demonstrating energy flow. Master Robert not only discussed, but had me doing Yin and Yang exercises that incorporate relaxation, flexibility, and softness to smoothly flow energy throughout my body.

Even though I have just begun my studies at the Birthing Life T’ai-Chi Center, I already see dramatic improvement in my practice. Both the beginner and advanced student will experience some of the benefits of T’ai-Chi within the first few lessons.

Every student should commit themselves to read all of the writings on the Web site; they helped me develop a better understanding and appreciation of the teaching.

Contact information for Gary Erickson's T'ai-Chi teachers in the United States (Word document)

Gary D. Erickson

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Birthing Life T’ai-Chi is a living form – a vehicle to co-create with the pulsations of chi, or life energy, in the body. It’s not the formal T’ai-Chi positions that awaken awareness, it’s noticing changes in the internal flow of chi and responding to them. When engaged in the practice of Birthing Life T’ai-Chi, the mind learns directly from life and begins to perceive and respond from life’s natural order arising in the present instead of reacting with fear, isolation, judgment, or other limiting perspective based on the past. The daily exploration of Birthing Life T’ai-Chi revivifies the mind’s connection with life, deepening a sense of trust in following and co-creating with the pathless path unfolding in each moment.

In my 13 years of study at the Center, Birthing Life T’ai-Chi has quietly and profoundly helped open my awareness in daily life. The practice even supports my analytical and often computer-based work as an associate economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. I’ve found that martial sensibilities apply when analyzing data, writing reports and giving public speeches.

I’m obviously an advocate for Birthing Life T’ai-Chi, but I don’t mean to imply that it’s the solution to all challenges, but the practice can bring any, and I mean any, challenge into solution, where it can break down, float, congeal, dissolve, reform and find its natural order. From a place of open and imaginative perception any challenge can be engaged as a warrior equal to the task. And as we navigate the present and upcoming rapid changes in technology, global community and spiritual awareness, Birthing Life T’ai-Chi has much to offer.

Rob Grunewald

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As a lifelong "doubting Thomas," I am pretty skeptical when I hear people talk about this or that and how it changed their lives.  I have been practicing T'ai-Chi through the Birthing Life Center for approximately six months and I can honesty say that I sleep better, my life is more relaxed, in short, I am living my life more fully.

George Laskaris

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T'ai-Chi practice is like a drink of water.
Your body needs it.
Your spirit perceives its clearness and fluidity.
You wake up in the morning wanting it.

Mary Manke

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There are many paths to peace, wellness and enlightenment. Tai Chi and Qi Gong offer all in one package. When I can't sleep, I do Qi Gong mediation and exercises and I fall asleep. In the morning when I do Tai Chi, my day is smoother. When I do hit the bumps in the day, I'm able to handle them with more peace and grace. At the Birthing Life T'ai-Chi Center each class incorporates Qi Gong and T'ai Chi.

Morgan Austin

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During the past twenty years I have practiced T’ai-Chi almost daily. Though this is not an “official,” definition of T’ai-Chi, I would say that it is an outward series of movements, or a form, which help the individual face that which is around and within. Karlfried Durchheim, in his book, The Way of Transformation says of T’ai-Chi practice, “The more a person learns whole-heartedly to confront the world that threatens him with isolation, the more are the depths of the Ground of Being revealed and the possibilities of new life and Becoming opened.”

My understanding of that was enlarged a few weeks ago after my T’ai-Chi class had finished the exercises preparing us to do the form together. I was standing, facing the front of the room where my teacher stood with his back to the class. Feet together, my eyes closed, ready to take a breath and begin. This time I did not think to myself, “I hope I can do this right tonight.” “I want my teacher to see that I have been practicing and I am learning.” “It’s been a hectic day. I know it’s good for me to be here, but I’m tired and uptight. I’ll just do the best I can.” “ I hope my grandson is O.K.” (Does this litany sound at all familiar?)

That night I relaxed my shoulders completely and thought, “I’ll just Be here, now. That’s all.” I did not have a plan, or expectations, fears or determinations. I was simply “there” in that moment, and then the next, and then the next. I suddenly felt so free! So full! Where I had allowed an empty space, a sense of abundance rushed in. I felt at one with myself and all that is. I felt like pure energy.

Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist nun and teacher at the first Tibetan monastery in North America, Gampo Abbey at Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, helps describe my experience of just Being in the present moment in my T’ai-Chi practice. She said, “As we practice moving into the present moment, we become more familiar with groundlessness, a fresh state of being that is available to us on an ongoing basis. This moving away from comfort and security, this stepping out into what is unknown, uncharted, and shaky - - that's called liberation.” (Pema Chodron in Comfortable With Uncertainty.)

Barbara Ziegenhagen

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