Kathy is another hero in this tale of World Tai Chi & Qigong Day, and its hub WorldTaiChiDay.org. You'll see in her story how this global vision we share of health and global connection inspired Kathy to come to our rescue at a crucial moment in this nearly 2 decades global phenomenon of WTCQD.

Kathy Smiley is a computer programmer, web developer, and tai chi enthusiast, as well as a late-life college student.

Kathy fell in love with tai chi while walking around a park in Irvine, CA, late in the 90s.  She watched the group for so long she was nearly walking backward!  Loving the flow Kathy was flabbergasted by how they all moved together - how could they do that?  It was over a decade before she had the opportunity to answer her question when a friend and she signed up for a community college class in tai chi.  The instructors were teaching Tai Chi for Arthritis, and Kathy was immediately hooked!  Going on to become a certified instructor of Dr. Paul Lam's Tai Chi for Arthritis, and also doing tai chi in a park where she learned a variety of styles, including fan, sword, and bang forms.  Her all-time favorite is the fan form, it's just so beautiful.  

Kathy's story has happened again and again. David Silver of the famed YMAA Tai Chi & Qigong DVDs happened to be walking by an early World Tai Chi Day event, and saw a large group flowing through Tai Chi and it captured his imagination, eventually leading him to practice Tai Chi, and now working with one of the world's largest Tai Chi DVD distributors educating people worldwide. Ariel Betti, an African WTCQD organizer, had the same experience of walking by a park, seeing Tai Chi being performed, and his mind clearly telling him, you will learn this, and this will become part of your life, and that caused him to touch thousands in Africa and beyond.

World Tai Chi & Qigong Day's miracle arrived when recently Kathy moved to a new city in another state and began doing qigong with a group.  When she told them about World Tai Chi & Qigong Day, they were enthused, so she told them she would find out about local events.  After a month of hoping the WorldTaiChiDay.org website would be fixed and she could search for events, Kathy realized there was a problem that she was equipped to handle, and so she emailed Bill and offered to help.

Kathy reported, "I cannot begin to convey how honored and privileged I feel in being allowed to participate in such a beautiful dream - One World, One Breath."

Kathy's journey inspires us at World Tai Chi & Qigong Day, because it is a living testament to how when we promote Tai Chi, Qigong, and Mind-Body arts ... we empower people to let Qigong loosen and expand us ... enabling us to more easily flow down a river that leads to really meaningful moments in our lives, where our life experience and expertise find their way into merging with our vision of possibility in the world ... and we become catalysts for positive change in our world beyond what any of us can do by ourselves ... when we merge with a global vision shared by people worldwide.

One World ... One Breath. Thank you Kathy!