We recently connected with Sandra Tjoa and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Sandra, thanks for joining us today. We love heartwarming stories – do you have a heartwarming story from your career to share?
I was pleasantly shocked.
I had no idea.
To me screens and devices were no more than cold distractions threatening the warmth, the vitalness of human interaction.
I couldn’t be more wrong.
Up until three and a half years ago, I was one of the biggest technophobes around.
I steered clear of anything with a screen and spent as little time on the computer as I possibly could . Even to this day I don’t have a phone of my own.
So in the Spring of 2020 when keys turned the locks on studio spaces around the globe and a devout student asked, “Would you teach online? I really miss my Tai Chi class,” the immediate response from my inner voice was ‘NO.’
There was no way – I just couldn’t imagine translating my classes onto a screen.
But for whatever reason, this plea struck a cord and I decided to give it a whirl.
A dedicated, loyal group of Tai Chi-ers encouraged their teacher as she fumbled with the basics of the keyboard to set up online sessions, figured out where to position the laptop camera and found innovative ways to provide different views and perspectives where guidance was most useful.
And then it hit me! one morning while I was doing my daily personal practice…”Hey! If I’m doing this everyday, I might as well have some company!
What if this could be a way for people to do something healthy and feel connected at the same time?”
With a basic warm-up routine, the Free Qi Gong Online Gatherings were birthed.
On Mondays & Thursdays, week after week, month after month, Everyone received a personal greeting joining us from Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and across Canada and the United States,.
Without fully realising what was happening, on my screen was the most delightful international group.
I thought these cyber get-togethers simply brought a little bit of healthy activity to people in light of a very challenging time, but after a year I learned that I was very wrong.
“These Qi Gong sessions are a lifeline…truly.”
“Living alone and missing human contact and touch, I learn that I can take care of myself.”
“It’s a powerful half hour.”
And from our Qi Gong centenarian who joined us online the month that she celebrated her 100th birthday (she’s now 102), “At my age I have little use for gifts, candies and clothes. At this stage in my life I’m looking for experiences and your classes are just that…an experience! It is such a congenial group of people you meet.”
Here I was in front of my screen sharing smiles and laughs, with people supporting each other online across borders and oceans.
I was so wrong.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My work as a Registered Respiratory Therapist led me to meet my husband in Saudi Arabia whose job landed us in several countries in Asia over a span of 14 years.
When my career transitioned to Full-Time Wife and Mom, Kindergarten mornings freed up some time to start studying and training with a master while we were living in Singapore.
Now, anyone who knows me today doesn’t believe me when I share that at the time I was in very poor health (I’ll share more below).
Qi Gong and Tai Chi completely turned my life around.
The master emphasised that if I didn’t teach, my personal practice would fade and after what I had been through there was no way I was going to let that happen.
And here we are 20 years later! My instructing days started from a dusty neighbourhood park to a tiny studio in Japan and in 2009 when our family moved to Canada, I founded Qi Tai Chi.
For two decades I have been guiding and helping people from all walks of life from business owners, medical professionals, entrepreneurs, and health and wellness practitioners, tap into their own healing potential so that they can make their way through challenges, manage stress, manage pain and do it in a way that allows them to be their true selves, who they’re really meant to be.
All offers are online or in-person ranging from weekly group classes to small group healing programs and private exclusives for intensive study or healing.
While the list of benefits of moving our Qi – life-force energy – are endless, to share what some experiences have been:
-a nurse with several health issues came off high blood pressure medication and decreased her daily prescription pills from
four to two
-a business owner of 3 companies got rid of his back and shoulder pain and found himself to be pleasant at work and loving
with his family instead of irritable and short-tempered
-a doctor who only got three hours of sleep a night at best, slept through the night…“It’s crazy!”
-a psychiatrist relieved her frequent headaches and migraines and with empowered mental and emotional clarity realised
she could set a healthier work schedule
-a counsellor cleared chronic abdominal pain and came into the confidence to apply for a position that had been denied
him for 15 years and got the job!
When we have health issues, whether they be physical, mental or emotional, we’ll go to doctors to get checked out, maybe go to therapy or try different healing or meditation modalities…
…most often our energetic health doesn’t come to mind. Our energy body needs our attention too.
Aside from that, our physical, mental and emotional bodies all have energy aspects to them so when we open up to healthy energy flow, balance and harmony it exponentially increases the efficacy of everything else we are doing to nurture our well-being.
One of the greatest things about getting healthy and healing through a Qi-balanced approach is that there’s no story involved; we work with the energy of emotions that cause stress and tension that manifest as blocks in the physical body.
Therapeutic benefits without hours in therapy.
The combination of my studies in Human Kinetics and Human Biology, my training in the medical field and these Qi practices have gifted me with great skill, wisdom and deep personal experiences allowing me to develop an approach to energetic healing that is relatable and easily understood.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
From the time that I was a teenager, I was intrigued with Tai Chi. I knew I wanted to learn it and not just learn it, but master it. Despite living in several Asian countries—including China, which is Tai Chi Central!—for one reason or another, nothing worked out.
While I was in China looking for Tai Chi teachers, another opportunity came up. Each morning, at the break of dawn, I’d make my way into the headache-inducing city air with well-worn directions in my grasp. (No such thing as Google maps or translator apps!)
After an hour and a half on multiple decrepit buses,I would shadow a doctor who allowed me to observe him treating patients. This kind man spent his lunch hours gesticulating in a frenzy of charades as he and I took turns pointing to a translated text not understanding each other’s words.
I was that desperate to learn anything in the Eastern philosophy of the Chinese medicine world.
I’ve often heard it said that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. With a breath and a sigh, I share with you when that was for me.
It happened on a Father’s Day.
Our friends lost their baby boy. A parent’s worst nightmare. One moment he was a spirited toddler and the next he was gone. He drowned in the pool at our home. We have no idea how he got there.
In all unexplainable tragedies that are completely beyond anyone’s control, I did what we humans do: I looked for someone or something to blame…I blamed myself.
A few short weeks later, it was our daughter’s second birthday. No friends. No music. No presents.
I see the photograph so clearly in my mind: With teeny toes dangling in the air, she is sitting by herself on a low, red brick wall in her beloved white sundress sprinkled with red cherries of love and green leaves of hope. Her gaze is fixated on her lap where a paper plate sits with a luscious piece of chocolate cake from our favourite bakery. With a fork in fisted hand, her tiny puckered lips are smeared with fudge icing as she savours each bite in pure delight.
But back then in my grieving heart, all I could see was sadness and loneliness. The years to follow were filled with isolation, more sadness, more loneliness and depression.
On those nights I laid awake make-believing different scenarios, talking myself through conversations that were never going to happen and mulling over millions of what-ifs over and over again in my head. My appetite disappeared; I can’t remember ever being hungry in that time. My slight frame was mere skin and bone, and I looked like I could barely hold myself up.
I was running on empty. With what energy I could muster in every fibre of my being, I gave all that I could to our two toddlers in their waking hours. Once they were asleep, I had nothing left for my husband, myself, or anyone else, but that didn’t matter…all our friends had fallen away.
Three years after the accident, in my most fragile state, weak and brittle, the master appeared: there he was.
And so it began.
After all tummies were fed and tucked into bed, in the late hours of evening with the hum of the air conditioner, barefoot on the cool white tile, I made sure to breathe and move every single night.
Within two weeks, I felt an uprightness in my posture, a tallness in my spine; my mood and energy were lighter; colour returned to my face.
I felt alive. Everyone noticed a difference. Sparks of hope lit up my days.
Once I started getting a taste of what health was like again, I couldn’t stop.
During one of the darkest and most challenging times of my life, training in Qi Gong and Tai Chi completely turned my life around. The way these practices have sustained me through challenges that life throws my way has brought me the wisdom and knowledge to understand how amazing and brilliant they truly are.
My bones and muscles have strength. My mind and body are resilient. My nights are filled with nourishing sleep, and my mornings are bursting with fresh energy and excitement of what the day ahead will bring.
I am strong. I am healthy. I am happy.
Everything I have lived and breathed through to today have opened up the opportunities to expand my skills and wisdom to guide others on their journey to living the life that they really want to live and reclaim joy into their lives.
Joy is our birthright.
I know the power of the body to heal.
I live in the power of the body to heal.
You can too.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
When people ask me what I do, I used to say:
“I teach Tai Chi and Qi Gong.”
But actually, it’s much more than what I do.
It’s how I live.
I live what I teach.
And I learn something new everyday that I live.
Moving my Qi into flow and balance for harmony is a lifestyle.
One that has profoundly revealed secrets of healthy living to me.
And this lifestyle of keeping open to energetic flow, balance and harmony through these ancient practices has naturally led me to want to share it with others, after all it’s something we all want…to be healthy.
To enjoy life pain-free.
To reclaim joy into our life because joy is our birthright.
I know the power of the body to heal.
I live in the power of the body to heal.
You can too.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://qi-taichi.ca/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/qitaichi.ca/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/qitaichi
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@qi-taichi
Image Credits
Portrait by Joel Fernandez Indoor Studio by Julie Kerr Teaching online by Shannon Hardy (Sandra in pink and white with microphone)