Alexandra 💗

*poke* does your life make sense, given that one day you will be out of mornings? innerpathing.com/p/shaking-the-…

@tasshinfogleman this is the way

when in Europe, drink coffee

@danielbrottman yaaaaay!!!!

lfg 🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲

@cookiecarver yessssSSSsssSSSsssSSss!

guys i have some exciting news! my sifu has said i can teach zoom classes now! i always thought i wasn't allowed do this but he just casually brought it up today. tai chi cookie is going international! can't wait to teach my two new students in a random part of the world!!

@tasshinfogleman i'll be there! looking forward to it

i'll be hosting a Gift Circle on May 31st! Gift Circles are a fun and joyful way to connect to a palpable sense of abundance and generosity, and to shift your life into a more magical place we'll have space for 8 people, would love for U to join! link below 💝

kiki & bouba: maid costume edition

@tasshinfogleman 👯

@innerpathing we have the same taste in woo books so i would concur heartily

Jeff recommended this book, which I am 2/3 done with, am enjoying. it has the peculiar honor of being only the second most woo money book I have read

@maebichka 'erratic dance' so gooooood!!!

ERRATIC DANCE* SUNDAY, 8-10:30pm, BROOKLYN *ecstatic dance norms (dance what you feel, not to perform. no talking. sober), erratic vibes - 2nd World bangers - chaotic electronic trash - some tender moments - 🥴 - normal fun songs DM me! ❤️

@abcdentminded A i love him B is he the secret to a Rick and Morty plot twist?

I'm a fan of the Hindu creepypasta god who predates the entire religion, looks nothing like any other member of the pantheon, and whose name translates to "Lord of the Universe"

@maebichka is it good

I have just started to listen to Last and First Men bc of qcs rec

@cookiecarver yaaaay congrats!!! do you know what brought them to class?

two more young ppl came to class today. i gave some extra cues during meditation. i could see they were uncomfortable standing still for so long BUT they stayed for the entire class! idk if they'll come back but this is a win in my book! the kids will be alright!!

@Josikinz wowwww

Finally getting consistent characters and art styles working in the DMT break-through replication app, this was generated by pasting in a trip report and clicking a button 🙃

@maebichka or whipped cream??

this is possibly the IDEAL way to eat ramen??? this is the perfect texture combo and then drink the soup powder packet together on the side like tea hm i would sub sour cream or cheese or something tho bc i'm a normie

@maebichka @cookiecarver thank U!! grateful for your flagging so i could read it!!

@cookiecarver @innerpathing Ur future pretty soon.....

diary of a new tai chi instructor: one year in it's been almost a year since i started teaching tai chi. it's spring now. summer is just around the corner. i can do classes in the park again. the best place to do tai chi really is in a park on a sunny day with the birds chirping and children laughing in the background while they play their ball games. no more dance studios till autumn for now i now teach in community centres, fancy gyms (with wine bars! who drinks wine at the gym!?), people's homes, and adult education centres. i even got asked to teach at a corporate office but had to turn them down since i was too busy. imagine me six months ago turning down gigs! it's pretty surreal to see how far i've come in a relatively short space of time my first class was on June 9th 2025. it was a Monday and i rented the cheapest dance studio i could find. five people came to that class and out of those five, none are still attending. it's quite normal for people to come and go. heck, i've started and stopped many hobbies. it's just how it is. it has made me more appreciative of students that stick around for more than one class, that's for sure every week i teach about 10 classes, around 40 a month. the current record is 43 in March 2026. at first it was daunting. how could i teach that many classes? won't i get tired? what if i burn out? i had my doubts. how did i deal with it? i just did it! i took it one day at a time and the opposite turned out to be true. it invigorated me. i'm not burning out, i'm burning in. it's a dream come true that i can do this as a vocation what have i learned since last time i wrote one of these, six months ago? so much that i don't even know where to begin, but also so little, since i still have a long way to go. i still attend three classes a week, long classes averaging more than three hours that need a tea break or else the kind old men turn into grumpy old men. i still do my qigong every day. i still remember what it's like to walk into a tai chi class for the first time and have no idea what's happening. in some ways i'm still learning that feeling myself, just from the other side of the room there's a revolving door of students that come and go in the gym classes. i don't know who will leave and who will stay, so of course i treat them all the same. i've become less sensitive to people coming and going. it's out of my control, i tell myself. i can only teach a good class. i can't make them stay. i can only do the teaching. they must do the staying i've noticed that younger people seem to get bored easily during the standing meditation at the start. they can't stand still, they look around, they fidget their hands, they giggle with their friends. the older students are a different story. they sink right in, eyes focused, barely moving. they tell me how relaxing it is after class. whereas the younger ones can't stand still, the older ones could stand there all day the older students do tend to worry about remembering the sequence of the form tho. i'm always quick to reassure them that it's part of the process, not to worry, keep practising and the body will remember. people learn at different rates. tai chi is an embodied practice. i can only guide them, give corrections when necessary, and encourage. they are the ones doing the work i try to make classes fun and throw in jokes all the time. some land but a lot don't! i do this because if the class is enjoyable people will come back, and if they come back they'll keep benefitting. i've heard horror stories of teachers forcing students to get it perfect from the first try. tai chi is precise, yes, but pointing out every flaw a new student makes would only put them off coming back. i'm a big believer in positive reinforcement. it's how i would have liked to learn i get asked good questions too. "why do we bend our knees in tai chi?" came up twice and at first i thought it was a silly question, but the more i thought about it the funnier it got. "is it to pounce on someone? to be more ready to take action?" yes and yes, i chuckle. and also because it brings your centre of gravity lower, which makes you more stable. this is my real answer btw my sifu always says "if you want to teach you must know your stuff, don't teach what you don't know!" i think about this a lot. it's why i still attend so many classes. if a question really messes me up i can always fall back on "i don't know, let me find out." there's no shame in that i've taught 10+ students the short form now, i've kinda lost count. two of my students have recently finished the second part of the long form as well, which is quite amazing! i know they'll finish the whole thing soon. that will be another milestone i'm currently the manager of six tai chi group chats. i have to cut and send videos of me narrating and doing the form so my students will remember the sequence and remember to practise. i take notes every single class. it gets tedious managing the digital side of teaching but every time i slack on my duties i think about the kindly grandmother who gives me a lift to the station after class and i know it's all worth it me teaching tai chi classes: haha fuck yeah!!! yes!! me managing six WhatsApp group chats at 11pm before bed: well this fucking sucks. what the fuck since i travel around london teaching, i spend a lot of time on the tube. occasionally if my legs are feeling like jelly i sit down and read a book but most of the time i just stand there as still as i can, hands dangling by my sides, while the carriage sways back and forth. it's good practice. i spend hours doing this every day i spend a lot of that time thinking about the next tai chi dream. i know i'm being greedy, having just achieved one dream and already reaching for another. but this one is different, bigger, and i can't really talk about it since i believe saying it out loud is bad luck. anyone who talks to me about tai chi can probably guess what it is the truth is, even if i never reach it, and it's a real moonshot, at least i know i tried. and even if i do succeed, the funny thing is i'll just be doing the exact same thing i'm doing right now: living, breathing, and sleeping tai chi

@cookiecarver love reading this!! i'm about to go from teaching 2 to 3 qigong classes a week and i'm like... can i do it?? and i haven't yet started teaching to the general public yet where ppl might be weirded out it's so encouraging to read your account! glad you are living the dream 🙇‍♀️

@MattZirwas @publickevents @YounisJoseph also lots of people slather cancer-causing ingredients on their skin all the time, but we blame the sun

Chronic, non-burning sun causes a lot of skin cancers, but they are types that rarely kill people. The skin cancer that kills people - nodular melanoma - mostly happens randomly, like most cancers. Sun burns increase the risk. Other causes of skin cancer in general: HPV, immunosuppression, arsenic, radiation, genetic syndromes. But most nodular melanoma is bad luck plus burns. If sun didn't prevent cardiovascular deaths, minimizing exposure would be the right move. But chronic, non-burning sun does prevent cardiovascular deaths. So minimizing it is the wrong move.

Dermatology is wrong about the sun. And it's killing people. I'm a dermatologist. 226 publications. I should know. Avoiding the sun increases the risk of dying as much as being a smoker. We can fix it. For decades, dermatology's message has been simple: avoid the sun. Wear sunscreen. Seek shade. UV causes skin cancer. End of discussion. That message is incomplete and outdated. People are dying because of it. Lots of people. The evidence has gotten strong enough that the field needs to update it.🧵

gotta mind the mental microbiome

@noa_tate_ love that! yeah sending birthday greetings is the perfect 'we don't talk much but i still care about you' check-in

@innerpathing i used to be better about adding people's birthdays to my calendar even if i didn't know them that well years later that's the one place they still are

the way to stay friends with ppl far away is to just check in with them 1x/year so low effort and yet so rewarding. so beautiful to witness friends' lives progress through periodic check-ins and so nice to remind ppl that they are still in your heart

@DiamonDie i am so intrigued! care to elaborate?

@innerpathing That most of the main things in my life are so bizarre that most people will never able to understand them.

what do you wish more people understood about you?