Cathy Hood

Six years ago, Dharma Voyage was a foreign-sounding name. Today it is a powerful influence in my life, with many facets. From the first Tai Chi class at the Dedee Shattuck Gallery back in the winter of 2015 I was completely captivated. I felt a powerful visceral connection; I want to do this, this is for ME.

I signed up because I heard that women in their sixties (I was 58 and getting a head start) who took up Tai Chi did not fall down in their 80’s like their peers. I thought it would be an interesting way to preserve balance. I also thought I was in pretty good shape to start, exercising regularly and lucky enough to be healthy despite a busy life.

For those first weeks, I felt burning quads and low back. Hmm, maybe not such good shape? I thought the movement itself was beautiful, and loved learning it in such patient little bits, with plenty of opportunity to falter and finally get it. Inexperienced as I was, doing my form made me feel calm and powerful. I was marveling at the caliber of teaching I was receiving; every word carefully chosen, every correction given with generosity and humor, every instruction a metaphor for real life. I have repeated many times that Ben is the most gifted teacher I have ever known (and I have been blessed with a few extraordinary ones in my life.) I couldn’t wait for my Tai Chi lessons each week. I still can’t.

When May of the first year came around, there was bustling interest among some of the Tai Chi students in the rowing season starting. What? You guys row? Big wooden boats Ben makes with the Westport kids? I love everything to do with boats! Ben is the teacher? Sign me up! I have often said that if Ben announced a weed-pulling class I would absolutely do that too. So I had my first orientation, with 5 others and a new coxswain, in a Cornish Pilot Gig launched at Hixbridge landing. With a big heavy oar in my hands I listened to Ben talk about how to use the oar to make the boat go and how to pay full attention to myself and my oar while syncing perfectly with  my boat-mates. He said that when we do that the boat lifts up as if to fly, a “beautiful” thing to experience. The river itself was heartbreakingly beautiful that day. As we were disembarking, I was thinking I would not be able to manage early morning rows with my schedule when Ben announced his intention to run a race training program once a week in the early evening. As we got out of the boat he looked at me and said, “I think you might like this.” So, I changed my mind and signed up. Race these things? Good to learn first how to row them...

I found rowing incredibly fun and felt a natural affinity for it. I loved the feeling of being one of many in the boat and quickly came to love the rowers I was training with. I am competitive by nature, but I really  didn’t care (much) what seat in the boat I got, though I liked to stroke and try to sense what everybody behind me was doing, and be able to set the pace. To be patient was a challenge. I was immediately aware that I had to step up my cardiovascular fitness to have better stamina for racing, especially if I hoped to stroke. I was learning about myself on the water just like I was learning about myself every time I did my Tai Chi form. Ben coaching was like Ben teaching. It was Tai Chi on the water, of course it was! Before races, when I wanted to feel calm and powerful, I would find a spot and do my Tai Chi form. Wellingtons and foul-weather gear in cold drizzle in a saltmarsh notwithstanding!

So I started running. About that time, my friend and teacher of the Alexander Technique Mary put the book “Born to Run” in my hands and encouraged me, “of course you can do this!” By July when we went out to Penikese Island for a Tai Chi retreat, I was running regularly and didn’t want to lose any of my hard-won progress, so I ran around the island being dive-bombed by seagulls. Ben told us stories of his travels and I first heard the story of the origin of life according to Taoist tradition, as well as Zen koans. I had a kind of home-coming feeling. I wanted to know more.

I started running like I was rowing like I was practicing Tai Chi. I started trail running in the beautiful woods around Dartmouth and Westport and I entered my first running race with Mary and another friend. I approached it like Tai Chi, paying attention and taking everything in and feeling my energy ebb and flow and Being (that capital B just popped up so I am leaving it there) aware as the final stretch approached that I still had energy left. So I pulled away and pushed to see what that would feel like, and the last leg was a new experience. At my age I was becoming a better athlete than I had ever been. 

Present tense: I AM becoming a better athlete, and a better version of myself in my everyday life. This will sound strange, but because of Tai Chi I stop fully at stop signs. I have shed my rush to judgement, and my rush to anywhere. I have a template for healing both myself and my patients. I have had an injury that hampered my strength-training and have opted to use Tai Chi in lieu of surgery for it and it is getting better. Is it possible that enough Tai Chi can heal anything? My toes have been liberated and are glad to be useful. I can do my form on the icy deck barefoot in the middle of Winter and end up warmer than when I started. I am finding my own true nature as a unique channel of universal energy. I aspire to move through my every moment with “power, elegance, softness and fluidity.” This is my own personal dharma voyage, and it is elating. I am continually, enormously grateful for it, and hope to be able to Share (another volunteer capital) what I am learning with others.