Every Tuesday afternoon, except in the heat of summer, Sheila and Tom Chin can be found in Lamb Hall at St. Cuthbert’s Anglican Church on Bayview Avenue in the tai chi class. Sheila and Tom both follow the video of tai chi exercises, but then, Tom takes over as leader to teach “actual” tai chi. The group now boasts some mastery of 15 of the 108 moves of classic tai chi, thanks to Tom’s patient coaching.
Tom’s story starts in China where he was born. His family moved to Kingston, Jamaica when he was small. The baking business they owned bought their flour from Maple Leaf Mills in Canada, and often the Canadian kids spent parts of the summer with Tom’s family in Jamaica, or Tom travelled north for Canadian visits. When it was time for post-secondary education, Tom first tried engineering at Notre Dame in the U.S., then came to Canada where he earned his accountancy designation before returning to Jamaica.
Sheila’s grandparents were Scottish and English missionaries who came to Jamaica and stayed.
Tom and Sheila married in Jamaica in 1975 but decided to move to Canada to work. They settled in Streetsville where they lived for over 30 years. Tom was originally working for Maclean-Hunter as their internal auditor, but when Rogers bought out the company, he and Sheila found themselves in London, England where he was setting up cable operations.
Tom was no stranger to the martial arts. He did judo in Jamaica. In Canada, after the Taoist tai chi organization moved from Montreal to Toronto, he decided to give tai chi (which is also a martial art) a try. In the 1990s, he was attending classes three or four times a week to learn the moves. It took him two years to be able to do a complete set of 108 without outside music, sound or coaching. He’s been a faithful practitioner of tai chi ever since.
After moving back to Jamaica in 2010, Tom started a tai chi group at the Chinese Benevolent Association where they spent evenings on the outdoor basketball court. The group started with only a few members, but grew, and continues to grow, even though Tom and Sheila returned to Canada in 2020 to be closer to their daughter and her family. Their daughter was working downtown, but when she and her husband decided to start a family, they wanted to live in a neighbourhood with good schools, a small town feel and proximity to work. Leaside ticked off all the boxes. So, with their daughter in the neighbourhood, where else would Tom and Sheila choose to live than Leaside as well?
After reading about tai chi classes in Leaside Life and seeing the sign mentioning tai chi outside St. Cuthbert’s, Tom decided to check out the offering. “I thought, maybe I can help them out,” Tom told Sheila, so they both then came. As Tom says, “tai chi has done wonderful things for me,” and “I will always give tai chi, but never, ever, charge.”
Interested in seeing Tom and Sheila in action? St. Cuthbert’s offers tai chi on Tuesdays from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. in Lamb Hall. Call the church for more information, or just show up.
stcuthbertleaside@toronto.anglican.ca.
