Susan Sternick, Instructor

Bio

Students can walk in fresh off the street looking for an experience of what BTC teaches and “class is a place where what is actually called for is to be exactly where you are and start working from there.” This self-acceptance, says Susan Sternick of her Dragon & Tiger teaching, is as integral a part of learning chi gung as is becoming aware of energy and energy blockages. Susan participated in the first BTC apprenticeship program begun a year ago to “home-grow” an instructor pool from long-time dedicated students. She has been studying tai chi and various forms of chi gung at BTC for about ten years, with additional experience at various times teaching K-6 elementary school in New York City and studying modern dance with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company. She loved dance at the time, she says, but one of the most freeing aspects of the movement arts she is involved with now is not having the goal to make an aesthetic statement. “With chi gung, I never see an end to this; you just keep exploring, and the experience changes you.”

Dragon & Tiger she finds particularly appealing because it has a palpable impact really fast. You can learn the basic choreography of the seven moves at a very rudimentary level and still get the benefit of working with energy right away, she says, or you can take it very far. This is one of the arts B.K. Frantzis brought back from China specifically to help Westerners suffering from the burnout of chronic stress. Students sensitize their hands to move energy along acupuncture meridians, loosening up the body.

Many of the students Susan works with are involved in health care and need tools to offset the stress of supporting other people. Others tend to believe they have to work really hard to exercise, like getting on a treadmill. It's great, she finds, to teach something that can be done even sitting in a chair to make people feel better when they thought they couldn't do anything.

Susan admits to starting off skeptical about developing the ability to feel energy, as compared to physical things. In order to teach beginners, she had to develop her own practice and was amazed to find how “just practicing can be your teacher.”