WaitElement and search from current element

The WaitElement Documentation states: "To search through the entire page starting from the page’s root element, put a double slash (//) at the beginning of the XPath expression. To start the search from the current element, use a dot (.)."

My Problem:

This returns a valid object, but it is very slow. I'm guessing its slow because it starts with double slash (//) which means it searches the entire page, of which there are tons of elements.

page.tblCell.WaitElement("//a//i[contains(@class,'fa-search')]")

This is my attempt at starting the xpath with a dot(.), but it causes an "object does not exist" error:

page.tblCell.WaitElement(".a//i[contains(@class,'fa-search')]")

Can someone provide a working example of an xpath expression that starts with a dot (.) ?