When my wife and I moved to the Austin, Texas area both my previous Bay Area teachers, Pak Chan and Ed Chan, challenged me to start teaching as a way to further improve my skills. I was not really considering doing it because I could not imagine finding the time but then in one day out of the blue I was asked by two different people, not knowing each other, to teach them Tai Chi. I went home that evening and told my wife about it. She said that on the same day two of her staff came into her office closed the door behind them and asked to speak with her, then they asked her, "Do you think you could talk your husband into teaching us Tai Chi?". We were both a bit amazed at the timing of being asked three times in one day and felt that it was a providential leading.

The locating of a beautiful facility to teach in just one mile from our home and one mile from my wife's Medical Practice, AllMedPhysicians, is another story. The Central Texas Academy of Martial Arts had no open evening time-slots. But, I still called Ray Parra and told him I would be interested in teaching Tai Chi there. Unfortunately I only had Monday nights as an available night to teach. Ray told me that their Monday night teacher had just called and wanted to teach in the daytime instead. So, the studio was available only on Monday nights, starting immediately!

Then I let the local newpaper, The Hays Free Press, know that we were starting a Tai Chi class in Buda and they sent a reporter to take the first nights class and produce an article. That favorable article brought in quite a few new students! And so... that is how the Soft Answer Tai Chi class began. Where it ends only God knows!

CTAMA has since installed a beautiful padded floor which works great for grappling arts but did not serve Tai Chi students well. This made us sadly leave their location. We then moved outdoors to the Elm Grove Elementary Schoolyard but left because they often had large events that displaced us and there were no washrooms or good cover from bad weather.

We have now moved the class to AllMedPhysicians while we seek and pray for another indoors location in Buda to open up for us! In the meantime we can meet in the Medical Office waiting room on poor weather days and practice under the canopy and in the shady areas of the parking lot when the weather is good. There is also water and washrooms which is very good!