2009 dates for Aberdeenshire

I have just booked the flights for my first two weekends teaching next year, namely January 29th - February 2nd and March 19th - 23rd. The intervening February dates with Mark will be confirmed at a later date as travel requirements will be arranged with him over Xmas. As you can see from the dates, I will be teaching the Thursday night group for Long Form, 121s on the Fridays, and 2 workshops per day on the weekends, or maybe 2 on Saturday plus a long traditional Sunday class plus a 121 on the Sunday, it's up to you. I was just about to book the April dates too but noticed that although they do not fall on a public holiday, they are at the end of the general Easter period. Please could you let me know if you will definitely be away on Thursday 16th April, and the following weekend, then I can book my travel plans accordingly. I cannot change the dates of this weekend, however, as I work around avoiding Mark's dates, Wang Hai Jun's dates, times when Scottish students are away and public holidays. This leaves very few windows of opportunity which is why I arrange my dates a year in advance, as well as to give everyone plenty of notice to arrange their diaries.

I will be teaching in Scotland every calendar month in 2009 except the August and December holidays, either on my own or with Mark. At the moment, for reasons beyond my control, I cannot travel up to Scotland for Thursday evening classes on the months when Mark comes to teach. I hope that you feel that the Long Form workshops he gives more than make up for the lack of a 'teacher' at your Long Form sessions. Perhaps you could all make sure that at these sessions you find any queries and bring them along to the workshop. I am, of course, working on solving this travel issue so that I can travel on a Thursday every month.

In 2008, after the fuel surcharges, the flight prices doubled for the days I tend to travel. Also, If I teach in Aberdeenshire on Thursday nights, I cannot teach at Amnesty in the afternoon, so David covers for me, which is excellent of him. The expense over the last 3 months had actually been too great to absorb, but from the New Year, and by booking a long way ahead, I hope to overcome that every available month. I am sorry that I haven't been able to teach a regular monthly Thursday class this Autumn, but I am sure you will all attend as much as possible and pool everything you have learned in the good spirit that I see whenever I visit.

Lastly, I hope any of you who want more hands-on teaching will book 121s with me when I come up and can get to Thursday class and any appropriate workshops. The lack of a regular teacher is actually a great opportunity. Do arrange to train with a T'ai Chi brother or sister regularly: this can even be better than the drip-feed one can get to rely on from attending class. Mark had no teacher for 9 years, and had spent many years training very regularly together with his colleague Heron. Through of his own effort and spirit of enquiry, he became the Master that he is.

A few words on self-training. When I had no one to work with, as you know, I travelled 1200 miles every 6 or 8 weeks to train with Mark paid for by ebaying most of my possessions! As soon as I could I started beginners classes, so that I had regular T'ai Chi in the week, whatever the band and home life brought up. Whilst these students steadily improved, I met a couple of guys who'd done plenty of other martial arts (Richard Nicol and Michael Downie) and agreed to teach them everything I knew of T'ai Chi at the time, in return for training push hands so that we could improve together. We used to have joint two-to-ones with Mark to get pointers on what to work on. When David came up to live in Forgue for 6 months we trained together, though purely due to my fault and home reasons, not as much as I'd hoped. These days I do occasional sessions with David, Colin (who has trained for 20 years in other martial arts and T'ai Chi), as well as other folks both from Mark's school and elsewhere. I tend to train with guys, bigger and stronger than myself. This really helps with my tendency to try to win or use force: it just won't work in these circumstances. If I do anything 'good' it's from letting go. For those of you who instruct, if you don't do this already, I wholeheartedly recommend asking a keen and promising student if they'd like to train extra with you, perhaps for free, in return for being your 'experimental helper'. For instance, maybe there's a kind of push that always gets you, or maybe when an opponent's hands come up to your face, there's still a flinch reaction. These are exactly the kind of thing that are best worked on in collaborative learning with a trusted colleague. You can ask them to repeat the 'problem' until your response neutralises it, and you are free from reactivity in relation to that push. There are also many T'ai Chi people from different schools in Aberdeenshire and Moray, several of whom I have met over the years, who I'm sure would be delighted to share skills and push hands, just for the experience. I am sure you will find either a colleague from class or someone from elsewhere if this way of training appeals to you. Good luck.