← Koala Moon: Kids Bedtime Stories & Sleep Stories for Kids Podcast
Koala Moon: Kids Bedtime Stories & Sleep Stories for Kids Podcast
Chill Bill The Tai Chi Tiger 🐯🪷 Soothing Bedtime Stories for Kids
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Foreign hello and welcome back to Koala Moon, a podcast of original children's bedtime stories and meditations designed to make bedtime a dream. We're going to start the show with a big warm welcome, huge shout out to Leo and Charles from Mountain View, California, to Georgia and JJ and Mummy Cassie who wrote in and finally to Isla in Wollongong, Australia for being an absolute superstar in her first term of kindergarten. Well done. Talking of the Cocoa Club. Ooh, we're all abuzz here at Sleep HQ as our brand new Coco Club exclusive series is launching this Wednesday. That's right, you heard me correctly Coco Clubbers. You are in for a treat and it starts on Wednesday. In the first story, we will be introduced to the magical Peruvian world of Playa del Moon with Capi and Tito the Capybara and chickadee besties who are about to spend a whole summer having sleepy adventures in and around the Amazon river, an area we haven't been to yet. Oh, it's going to be cool. I hope you Koko Club members love them as much as we have all enjoyed writing them and putting them together for you. Before we begin, a quick message for the grown ups. If you'd like to support our podcast, enjoy ad free listening, unlock four bonus stories per month and much, much more. You can join Koko Club subscribe in just two taps via the link in the show notes, but now here's a quick word from our sponsors. Hey parents, if your little ones love learning as much as they love story time, I've got something special for you. ABC Mouse is the award winning and super fun learning adventure app made just for kids aged 2 to 8. It's packed with over 10,000 awesome activities across reading, maths, science, art and more. Your little explorer can dive into magical puzzles, colorful books, exciting games and catchy songs all created by expert teachers to help them learn at their own pace while having a blast. It's safe, ad free and designed to keep your child engaged without any interruptions. Whether you're enjoying some family time together in the evenings or looking for something educational to explore during the day, ABC Mouse is a brilliant screen time solution. You can try it out for free with a one month trial and after that it's just £14.99amonth until cancelled or choose an annual membership for just 45 a year until cancelled. Head to www.abcmouse.com koalamoon to get started today. You'll also find the link in our latest episode Show Notes to make it extra easy before we Settle in for tonight's sleepy story. Here's something for the grown ups and for our little dreamers who love big adventures with Groupon, it's easier than ever to make magical memories together. If your little one has ever wished they could leap into a Koala Moon adventure, like taking a ballet class with Koko and Kira, or riding the monorail with Hector and Sunny, Groupon might just have the real world version waiting for you. From trampoline parks and pottery classes to petting zoos and planetarium visits, Groupon helps families discover amazing activities, all at prices that make it easier to say yes to fun. So when the sun comes up and those curious feet are ready to explore, just open the Groupon app and see what surprises are nearby. I've taken a peek already and I'm super excited about what's coming up this summer. For a limited time only and exclusively for our Koala Moon listeners, you can use code MOON30 to get 30% off when checking out at Groupon before May 31st. That's code MOON30 for real life fun at fairytale prices. Groupon Adventure is just around the corner. Hello Koala Moon listeners. If you have babies and toddlers in your family, then this announcement is for you. I'd like to tell you about my other sleep show, Koala Tots. It's got all the magic of Koala Moon, but it's made especially for the littlest of listeners, babies and toddlers. Koala Tots is packed with soothing stories and calming rhymes, perfect for helping babies and toddlers sleep like a dream. Not only are the stories incredibly relaxing, but they have easy to understand language and gentle repetition designed to help with baby's cognitive development as they drift off to sleep. There's even appearances from some of the Koala Moon star favorites alongside the cutest episodes like how to Hug a Hedgehog and Nugget's Cozy Night. So search Koala Tots on your favorite podcast player, then hit follow so you can find it easily night after night. Back to tonight though. We are now heading to a village amongst the mountains of China where a very special tiger awaits us. He's a wise creature who knows lots of secrets, but he wasn't always that way. Let's hear his story. This is Chil Bill, the Tai Chi Tiger by Jane Thomas. If you ever go to the mountains in Southern China, be sure to ask whoever you meet where you can find Chill Bill, the Tai Chi Tiger. He's something of a legend in these parts and everyone will know where he can be found. People and animals travel from all corners of the world to train with Chill Bill and to learn the secrets of calm and peace and tranquility from him. Of course, it takes many, many years to become as serene as somebody like Chill Bill. And he certainly didn't start life that way. No, for most of his younger years he had a very different nickname indeed. He was known as Silly Billy because he was always, always, always getting into scrapes. If a table was knocked over in a market, you could be sure it was Silly Billy rushing around on his way to something exciting. Or if a fishing boat somehow became loose from its mooring and drifted out to the middle of a lake, you could be sure Silly Billy was behind it. He drove his mother, and indeed his whole town, up the wall with his antics and escapades. One day, when Silly Billy was definitely old enough to know better and had annoyed his mother one too many times, she sent him to find the wisest creature in the land. This creature was known to live at the very top of the very highest mountain. So his mother figured that at least, even if Silly Billy didn't find him, he would be very tired indeed at the end of the day and perhaps have a good long sleep to recover from his quest. Silly Billy did as she asked, heading away from the town and along the path that wound round and round, up and up, wrapping the mountain in a single silvery thread. At the bottom of the mountain, where a stream had gathered momentum and courage enough to become something of a river, he passed fishermen standing quietly by the side. They had baskets by their feet filled with shimmering silver fish that glistened in the early morning light so bright he could hardly look at them without needing to half cover his eyes. Then he found his way between the trees and over painted red bridges and past gold and green topped temples. A little further up the mountain, he came across farmers working in their soggy fields, water buffalo treading through knee deep pools and dragging the ploughs behind them, churning the bright red mud and readying it for the planting of rice. The farmers wore wide pointy hats woven from reeds, and they guided their buffalo as they walked, slowly but steadily, a step at a time, back and forth through the watery fields. As Silly Billy went further and further from town, he saw less and less people. The world became quieter and he could pick out the individual sounds. Down in town, everything sort of blended together in this crazy mass of noise that drove him wild, but up here he could hear a single bird sing as it stood on a branch and welcomed the new day. He could hear the trees rustling. And as he went, he learned which leaves sounded this way and which leaves sounded that way, so he knew which tree was rustling in the breeze. He heard the sound of fishermen casting their lines into the water with the quick whirr of the reel and then the gentle splash as the hook and the bait and the sinker broke the surface. He heard the steps of the water buffalo working their way through the fields, each leg sucked in for a moment by the thick red mud and then pulled out with a satisfying slow and steady squelch. The higher he went along the silver thread of path that wound its way round and round the mountain, the quieter everything became and the more he noticed everything he had never noticed before. A row of women were crouched low in a rice paddy, reaching into baskets on their backs and pulling out new plants that they dipped into the waters. Perfect rows of bright green. The women wore the same hats as the men who ploughed the fields, but they had coloured theirs with dyes. And so he saw a blue circle alongside a purple circle and a red circle and a yellow circle working their way steadily through the shallow waters, all reaching behind in unison for a new plant and putting it in its perfect place in the line. He watched as long legged white birds picked their way through the water, their black feet being lifted high and placed carefully in the next perfect spot, wings folded in neatly as their eyes scoured the water for a treat. Then their long black beaks would reach into the depths and pull out whatever they had found. And after the snack had been savoured and swallowed, they went back to their solemn pacing. Silly Billy stopped halfway up the mountain and looked out at the view. The town where he lived seemed so very small. And from all the way up here he didn't see the hustle and bustle and the noise that drove him wild. He just saw a gathering of buildings that thinned out as they went away from the town. So whereas in the middle of town they were high and close together and tracked the sound and smog so it seemed louder than ever. Out on the edge, the buildings had gardens and space between them. And then further away, the buildings were bigger, but surrounded by fields dotted with cows and goats and chickens. From up here in the silence of the mountain, he wondered how he ever found the town so stressful and why it made him do such wild things. By the time he made it to the very top of the mountain, he could no longer look down on the town because he'd risen above the line of the clouds. He had walked through Them, his striped fur getting damper and damper. And then all of a sudden, he'd broken through and he was back in the sunshine. And there was blue sky overhead. It looked as though the whole world had been covered in this soft white blanket and he was in another universe where only the tops of mountains poked through. He saw bridges swinging between some of the mountaintops when they were close enough, rope bridges that looped down and back up. And he saw people and creatures crossing them, saving themselves from walking all the way to the base of the mountain and up again. And some of the bridges swung so low that they disappeared into the clouds, so the middle part of the loop was missing. Wrapped in white. The wisest creature of all that awaited Silly Billy was, perhaps unsurprisingly, an owl, for they are known the world over for their wisdom and brains. Silly Billy found the owl standing on one leg, his wings widespread and face turned towards the sun. His eyes were closed, and as Silly Billy watched, the owl slowly lifted one leg and turned his body and pushed his wing gently forwards against an invisible force. He was breathing long and slow breaths. And all the time his wings moved gently, steadily, surely, and his legs turned him this way and that. And a soft smile sat on the owl's face. Without opening his eyes, the owl suddenly spoke to Silly Billy. Come, tiger, he said. Come stand with me. Silly Billy looked all around to check there were no other tigers. But no, he was the only one. So he walked up to the giant boulder on which the owl stood and sat down next to him. All the while the owl continued his movements, pushing back against invisible forces, his wings drifting from one side to the other, rising and falling on the toes of his feet. Silly Billy watched for five whole minutes before he decided to see if he could copy the owl's movements. He stood on his back legs and pushed his front legs out to the side, taking care to breathe in for 1, 2, 3, 4, just as the owl did. Then slowly release the breath for 4, 3, 2, 1. Just as the owl did too. As he breathed in, he reached his arms to the sky and held them up there for the briefest moment before slowly and gently for 4, 3, 2, 1. Lowering them to his sides once more. Silly Billy found himself closing his eyes and feeling the movement and feeling the sun on his face. And after a while he realised he hadn't thought anything at all for whole minutes together. His mind that had always been so busy and always got him into mischief with its ideas and, and suggestions had been completely clear. He stayed with the owl for Hour after hour, and then, just as the sun was starting to sink in the sky, Silly Billy wound his way back down the silver thread of path that wrapped itself round and round the mountain. By the time he reached the lower slopes, the women had moved away and were no longer planting rice, and the farmers and the water buffalo had left the fields and the fishermen had packed up their rods and baskets of shimmering silvery fish. Fireflies lit the way. As he walked back to the town, Silly Billy found he was walking more slowly than usual, and he found that he was feeling the ground beneath his paws and noticing every moment and movement. The first car that screeched past didn't disturb him as they usually did, and a lorry that rumbled by with a great deal of noise and drama didn't make him want to shout and yell. As so often happened, a door slammed and he didn't feel the fur rise on the back of his neck the way it did sometimes. That night, Silly Billy slept more than he had in years, not arguing with his mother about when his bedtime should be and not fighting against the tiredness in his body. Instead, he lay his head on the pillow and closed his eyes and was once more on a mountaintop with the owl standing on one leg as he lifted his front legs gently towards the sky for 1, 2, 3, 4, and then breathing out for 4, 3, 2, 1, as he lowered them to be back by his side. He was asleep in moments, drifting on a boat that travelled on the clouds between the mountaintops, rising and falling on the soft folds of the clouds as if they were waves on the sea. The feeling of peace lasted for two whole days, and during those days it was the first time his mother stopped and looked up and said to him, do you know, Silly Billy, I think we need to have a whole new name for you after your trip to the mountaintop. I think you should be called Chill Bill. And he remained Chill Bill for those two whole days. And then once more the noise and the chaos and the hustle and the bustle of the city started to get to him, and it wasn't long before he was once more rushing through the market and knocking over tables and setting boats loose on the lake. And his mother was once more calling him Silly Billy. She suggested he go back to the mountaintop to see the owl. And once more he went, passing by the fishermen with their baskets of silver, gleaming fish and the men pacing slowly and steadily behind the water buffalo through the fields thick with mud, and the ladies with their coloured hats reaching behind them for the next bright green, ripe plant to be placed in perfect formation. And then he once more rose above the clouds and was alone with the mountaintops jutting up into the bright blue sky. And he was beside the owl and closing his eyes and pushing against invisible forces as he breathed in slowly and steadily and out calmly and softly. Each time he returned to town, he would be a calm and quiet tiger for a while. And those whiles grew longer and longer with each visit. After a year, nobody called him Silly Billy anymore, and the name was quite forgotten. And instead he was now Chill Bill, who walked as if in some magical separate bubble, seeing the noise and the chaos of the town but not absorbing it the way he had before. Some people and creatures in the town came to Chill Bill and asked him for his secret. And he tried to show them how to breathe slowly in and breathe slowly out and move in such a way that they pushed against invisible forces. But they found it almost impossible to concentrate when the cars rushed by and the lorries beeped their horns and delivery men shouted about their wares. And in the end, he realised how very hard it was to find peace in a place. And he thought back to how he felt on the very top of that mountain that reached out above the clouds. And he went to find the owl and ask if he, too could share the space. The owl gave this some thought, and then he declared that Chill Bill must have the mountain top instead. It was time for him to fly to another land, he said. And before there was time for a debate or an argument, the owl took a long, gentle bow and Chill Bill did the same. And then the owl lifted his wings and floated off into the blue, blue sky until he was just a dot that Chill Bill could barely see. And then he was gone. Up here, quite alone for the first time, Chill Bill felt a new sense of wonder. The sea of clouds moved slowly and gently beneath him, covering the rest of the world and all its chaos. And the rope bridges swung gently in the breeze between the mountaintops that reached up to the sky. And he stood on the boulder and breathed in and out, clearing his head of thoughts and feeling as if there was nothing in the universe but him and the air and the warmth of the sun on his face. He found that he slept better than ever up there on the very top of the mountain, with no worries and no troubles and no interruptions. And his days were spent performing the gentle moves that he now knew to be called Tai Chi and sleeping for a while before starting all over again. And after a while, he received his first visitor from the town, who came bearing a huge basket of fruit as a gift. And Chill Bill did just the same as the owl had with him, and stood on the boulder with his eyes closed, performing his particular moves until he sensed the visitor had stepped alongside and was following him along. Word spread about the tiger's calm nature and the feeling he could put into you, and more and more visitors came up the mountaintop, finding their way up the silver thread of path that wound its way round and round. Half the time they would find Chill Bill fast asleep, his gentle snores rippling out above the blanket of clouds, and they would wait, sitting on a log with their offering of food, until he had woken and moved slowly across to his boulder to ease his way through the air and the sky. Sometimes they would appear, and Chill Bill would already be in the middle of his movement, and then he would slow and stop and lie down on the rock and be fast asleep in a moment, and everyone wished they could be as calm and rested as him. It took many years of being on the mountaintop before Chill Bill felt ready to return to the town and take his tranquillity and peace with him. He was sure it had been fully absorbed by now, and so, for the first time in 20 years, he slowly made his way down the silvery thread of path. He noticed now there were still women in the fields in their colourful hats, reaching behind them into baskets for bright green rice plants that were planted in perfect rows, and there was still water buffalo being guided through the deep, thick, rich red mud, and there were still fishermen standing by the stream where it was at its widest and almost a river, and alongside them were baskets of silver, shimmering fish. And he saw how the town was larger than ever, where the big buildings had swallowed up the smaller ones, and those with the gardens were now even further out, and those with the fields around them with the cows and goats and chickens were even further still. There were more trucks and lorries and cars, and a silver train charged through the countryside, slicing through the mountains and rushing from here to there, as if everything must be done in a hurry. The world had changed, but the calm Chill Bill had absorbed from his mountaintop stayed with him. These were the people and creatures who needed his calm, he reasoned. And so he took himself to the very centre of the town, where there was a huge square surrounded by shops and cafes and market stalls and the same hustle and bustle that once drove him quite wild. And he stood in the centre of the square and started to move slowly and gently, pushing against the invisible forces and slowly the people and creatures of the town gathered around him to watch, some laughing and joking, and then their voices fading to nothing as they felt the calm wash over them. They began to copy his moves, closing their eyes and turning their faces to the sun, taking off their jackets and placing them over their bags, turning off their phones so they couldn't interrupt this pocket of peace in the middle of the town. Chill Bill would often fall asleep in the middle of his moves, just as he did on the mountaintop. But everyone had learned enough to repeat the movements themselves, knowing they had to breathe in long and deep for 1, 2, 3, 4. And hold it for the briefest of moments before letting it out for 4, 3, 2, 1. Reaching their arms to the side and above their heads and turning their bodies gently this way and gently that way. The tiger would move as he chose, sometimes staying in the town for weeks at a time, and sometimes for just a few hours, heading off to the distant villages to perform his moves and spread his peace and calm. And then returning to his mountaintop that reached up into the sky above the sea of clouds. If you are ever in the mountains of southern China, be sure to ask whoever you meet where you can find Chill Bill, the Tai Chi tiger. He's something of a legend in these parts. And everyone, I promise you, everyone, will know where he can be found. People and animals travel from all corners of the world to train with Chill Bill and to learn the secrets of calm and peace and tranquility from him. Learn to breathe. Learn to close your mind to the chaos. Learn to find the calm between everything else that is happening. And you, too, can learn the magic of Tai Chi. Practice it now by feeling your head on your pillow and the warmth of the blankets around you. Imagine you are floating on an endless sea of clouds, rising and falling gently with them as they drift and move and dance through the world. Breathe in slowly for 1, 2, 3, 4. And hold it here for a moment. And then let it out for 4, 3, 2, 1. Breathe in slowly for 1, 2, 3, 4. And hold it here for a moment. And then let it out for 4, 3, 2, 1. There is always peace. There is always calm. There is always serenity inside you if you let yourself find it. Sa.