“With all this talking, what has been said? ”
When I closed the Moon on Market Street word got out I had retired. I guess I thought that might be an option since I still hadn’t figured out what I was going to do. Frankly I didn’t believe I would actually retire and I doubt anyone else did either. In many ways I felt the Moon was just starting to be at the top of its game, as untethered as we were. Laura, Shiuwen, Nicholas and Doug ran classes around town while I was travelling. Larry moved the students he had cultivated through years of teaching his Saturday morning class at the Moon to another space in Ballard. We all planned for this with a great deal of intention. I needed a sabbatical, but it was important to me people had a place to go and skilled teachers to be with if they wanted to continue.
Right before the party and somewhat unexpectedly Michele Miller & Heather Coyle, who I had known for years, contacted me to see if I was interested in renting their space at Shift for a couple of my classes. Derryl taught there too, and others; I didn’t seek this studio out in my research because they all had established Taijiquan and Martial Arts programs. Instead of protecting their turf however, they all welcomed The Moon, saying it was their dream to have a space so devoted to martial arts and internal practices.
The space was a great fit. Lovely, with the right aesthetic and overall spirit I had not found in other places. I thought about what I wanted to teach, knowing I still needed to cut back and heal my deep fatigue. Inevitably I realized it was not the teaching that drained me, it was running a studio. So, I decided, if possible, I wanted to keep most of the classes I had at the Moon on Market Street.
Michele, Heather and Derryl went out of their way to accommodate our schedule and welcome the Moon. They changed their schedules, built an office for Derryl and I to share, there was room for Doug and Laura to continue their popular classes. And, they charged me a very fair rent. After I got back from my travels I started teaching again in October of 2018.
Students returned, most all the usual suspects, I think happy to have a new home. New folks - who didn’t really know of the Moon and so didn’t think I retired - began to come to our new location. It took some adjustment, Google still sent people to Ballard. It was new to integrate our large group into a shared space, but the kinks got worked out quickly. The D’s came back to Seattle in December. Shift didn’t have time on their schedule, so we all went to Phinney Community center for the workshop. It was a bit strange for all of us, not being at the home we remembered, but once we started training it didn’t matter!
In 2019 I returned to the Village two times. My trips to the Chen Village are not just for training, not just for my teacher, but for healing too. It may sound counter intuitive, but the rigor of the experience clarifies me. And, to be honest, becoming a teacher was never my goal; I only wanted to be a student. In the Village, with the Ancestors and my teacher, it is always only being a student.
The first trip was in February. Moon Richard, his first visit, and Portland Kathy came too. I’d never been to the Village in February and I’m not sure I’d choose that time to go back – it was cold! We suffered right along with the D’s and our training friends from the U.K. We had our usual fantastic time. One of the unfortunate delays of the pandemic is a hold on a release of a series called The Colours of China. The filming of one of the episodes was in Chenjiagou during that trip and you guessed it, it is to include a bit of our group training. It also includes a bit of yours truly being corrected by CXX!
Moons Doug, Meg, Lisa Ma, Shiuwen, Matt, our good friend John Howe and I travelled back in August. It was hot! The sound of cicadas was omnipresent, along with our sweat. We trained hard, ate a ton of watermelon (for electrolights), and were melted down into pools by Grandmaster’s corrections. We trained in his private training room because it was the only place in the Village that had a fan. It was a treat to be in that room with such history.
During my February trip, Emilio Alpanseque, writer for Kung Fu Tai Chi Magazine, had asked me to do some research on learning Qinna (joint locks) in Chenjiagou. The article was published during this August trip, which was a fun twist of timing fate. Emilio had to work very hard to recruit me for the piece, as always I prefer to keep a low profile. In the end I acquiesced because Emilio is a very good writer. I also felt showing a 62-year-old woman learning the martial art side of Taijiquan in the traditional way, with the founding family, in one of the most authentic places on the planet to do so, would set a good example.
2019
As 2020 opened, our school had found its rhythm. New students were becoming regulars, “old” students were going deeper. The D’s, CZQ and Jan had all returned, infusing the Moon with rich training and inspirational juice. The winter session was ticking along just fine, and then the pandemic hit our soils. I had been watching my friends in China deal with the virus since November by frequently logging onto WeChat (Chinese Facebook). The Taijiquan community was online offering video lessons to help with immunity and stress. Everyone wore masks.
In March our floor classes became smaller and we shifted to mixed online and in person. Then on March 22, I no longer felt safe or responsible teaching in person, so I called it 100% online. The next day our Governor put out the Stay at Home order. I didn’t have time to process what was happening on a personal level, I just knew I had to get our classes up online. Clearly we were heading into the unknown in traumatic and terrifying ways with no experience of how to make our way through it. The only thing I knew how to do was keep training and teaching like I always do.
Most all the Moon students converted to our online classes. As well, long ago students returned and other friends from around the country and even across the Atlantic regularly Zoom the Moon. Moon’s Doug, Laura, Nicholas & Scooter got up and running with their own classes and supporting me in our larger mixed level classes. Michelle took over Larry’s group for the time being. Students donated over $3000 to help with new expenses and studio rent and to make sure anyone out of a job could still come to classes. Experiencing how quickly we all, teachers and students adapted and once again dug into our changing circumstances, has been profound. And people continue to learn, continue to improve.
Early in my training my first teacher said to me, “all you have to do is show up.” I guess I took him seriously! And now, in the midst of the weirdest times of our lives, when it counts more than ever, we are all showing up. In a very real way, this moment is exactly what training prepares us for. Sure, in “normal times” we show up for classes, we suffer our own inadequacies, we laugh, we cringe, we get glimpses and we lose them. We think about quitting. But we do not. And because we keep coming back to the floor, to our practices, we develop a stability, a capacity inside of ourselves to be able to deal with the unexpected. We may not even realize we have it until we are tested. And Covid is testing us.
I remind myself and our Moon students: this time is our time. It is our time to show up, it is our time to practice staying grounded, flexible and centered. It is our time to breathe in and out, to step left, raise and lower our arms, Topple Mountain Range and Pound the Mortar. It is our time to log on from our kitchens and living rooms and basements and gardens and meet each other as we do every other day, on the training floor. In doing so we will come out of this stronger. We are already more pliant, more flexible. We already have greater heart/mind capacities than we knew were ever possible.
Embrace The Moon School for Taijiquan and Qigong turns 25 today, May 25th, 2020. As we have for the past 2 months, we will open open our computers, click on Zoom and log in. We will enter from the waiting room and chat before class just as we do in person. Then, we will practice together as we have for the past two months, from our living rooms, gardens, porches and kitchens. We will practice together as we have for the past 25 years.
There are many more stories to tell. And many that can never be told! This story took on a life of its own (at the onset I figure I would just throw up a few photos and call it good!). In another perhaps more valuable iteration, this story would be a series of love letters to all my students and teachers and to all those who have accompanied me personally on this journey. Of course, this would take another 25 years.
For those students, friends and colleagues who have had a chance to read through all of this, I trust you have a better sense of your school’s history and the history of which you are a part. I trust you read it with pride, not for what I have done, but for what we have done together. Please know I hold all of you in my gratitude. And please, each of you, do take a moment to feel how much you have influenced not just my personal life, but the lives of so, so many people. If this Covid time we are in teaches us nothing else, it teaches us we are all deeply connected. We do not do this life alone. And yet, I only say words you already know.
Respect, Salute, 10,000 Thank You’s.
Kimberly Ivy, Founder Embrace the Moon Taijiquan and Qigong
Est. 1995
