ID Cards

HURRAY!
ID cards will now not be compulsory in the UK.

What kind of mad authoritarian organisation thought it would have been a good idea... oh yeah, our government.

Taichi Caledonia

I will be away in Stirling from this Sunday at T'ai Chi Caledonia, and I'm really looking forward to it. Ev will also be there too, from the Friday. I will be arriving late, as Saturday will be spent studying with Master Wang in London. I will have my mobile phone with me if you need to contact me, the number is on my main website. I am not sure if I will get internet access during the week.

Partnerwork sessions in London

The first of the partner work sessions took place yesterday and was well attended despite it being a hot sunny day outside. The hall we use is light and airy, which is lovely, and 11 of us played at all manner of push hands and other work for 3 hours. The next ones are on Saturday 10th October and 21st November. In 2010 they will run about 8-9 months of the year. Once everyone has all the basics of Ta Lu, Wabu, DPH and other foundation studies, Mark will resume his partnerwork days. Organising these mornings is a bit of enlightened self-interest on my part. I have no burning desire to run the days per se, but can't wait to do partner days with Mark again along with all my students and colleagues.
Incidentally, with 11 of us the cost worked out at just £5 each, which was great.

Workshop stay arrangements

I just heard from my London good student Rob that he'll be arriving late on the Saturday night and doing the week with us. All the Scottish students have met him at previous intensives. Is there anyone who has a spare place to put him up? He's a lovely chap, and handy round the house too! Do let me know. Thanks, caro x

Aberdeenshire Sunday classes - 28th June & 5th July

The drop-in class will be at Scott's this Sunday if it's fine - the forecast is currently looking good. If the weather takes a turn for the worse, then class will be at Paolo & Davina's.
And on the 5th July we'll meet at Neil and Anneke's place.

Partnerwork Sessions in London

Partner work sessions begin this Saturday and continue every other month or so, as listed before. Please do come along for 3 hours from 10.30am at St Mary Magdalene Church Hall, Trinity Road, Tooting, Wandsworth. Call or email for further details. Cost is £1 plus share of hall fee, tea will be provided.

No class at Inverurie tonight, 24th June

Just a reminder that there is no class tonight at Inverurie Academy. The last class of term is next week, 1st July.

121s with Caro in July

I will be available to teach 121s every morning from Sunday 26th until Friday 31st at Paolo and Davina's place. If you would like a session (between 1 and 2hrs) just email to book one. You may have a Form or Partnerwork query that's been bugging you, or may want to look in detail at some aspect of your T'ai Chi outwith the class environment. Let me know any time soon. Anyone who missed their 121 in April when I could not come up is very welcome to rebook.

Fetternear ideas

Just getting things ready for the 4th annual week-long session... At some point today I will email all the students who are kindly putting people up for the week as well as the students who will be those guests, to get email addresses exchanged and then leave all the details up to you. There may be 2 more London students coming, but we won't know until the week before. I'm sure we can put them up somewhere. Numbers will vary each day, with 18 minimum and 30 maximum expected.

If anyone has a dehumidifier tucked away in their shed, or can borrow one for the week, that'd be great. At Drumblair we found it made the steadings so much more pleasant to work in, and prevented all damp. We'll be doing a thourough clean of the hall on the Friday or Saturday before the course, so that it's a bit more ship-shape and welcoming. It is a great hall, but I think it needs a bit of TLC. We will be bringing a vacuum cleaner, towels, tea towels, extra cutlery, flowers, etc. but if you can think of anything else we need to get, let me know. I think we'll be ok on the cake front, however.

This weekend

I had the most wonderful time teaching in Aberdeenshire, well done to all the students. Working outdoors in the sunshine today was particularly fine, and I am a little pink form the sun. Here's the first of a few pics that I'll post of our shadows, by Davina. See you all next month for the weeklong intensive, and looking forward to catching up with those who couldn't come this weekend.

Partnerwork mornings in London

Just a reminder, these sessions will be 10.30am -1.30pm on Saturdays at St Mary Magdalene Church Hall, Trinity Road, on these dates;
27 June, 10th October, 21st November.

Cost will be an equal share of the hall fee plus £1. All my and Mark's students are welcome, email or call with any questions. Have a look at the previous blog post for a full description.

Weapons / Instrument cases

My London student Carmen had the great idea of transporting her sword and sabre in a soft guitar case, giving her room for books, shoes and water as well as providing comfortable shoulder straps when worn like a back pack. A bass guitar gigbag would be even better, as it would fit the length of the weapon without a squeeze. The cheapest and best supplier I know of all things musical and all kinds of cases is http://www.thomann.de/ . They have a dedicated English speaking phone number and website and ship very quickly. I have ordered everything from bass cases to high-end recording gear to a double bass from them with no problem. An economy electric bass gigbag is £8.10, rising to £19.40 for the deluxe one. I will get one myself soon, as the pockets on the deluxe ones would mean I would no longer need a separate bag for class. The bags make it unlikely that someone will know you are transporting weapons to class. The only draw-back is that at some point folks will ask you to play them a song, so maybe pack a mouth organ in the pocket to confound expectations.

Incidentally, both Mark and I will shortly be producing ID cards for those of our students studying weapons, which will have your photo on and proof that you are members of a bona fide school. More on this shortly.

Melt all rigid structures!

Last night I shared a late supper and good conversation here with Mark, Duncan and Sam Masich. at some point in the flow of things Mark said 'Melt all rigid structures'. That exhortation was the first thing I remember thinking when I woke up.

As well as catching my imagination as a maxim, it would really make a great name for a free festival...

Short Form classes over the summer

The beginners classes organised by Aberdeenshire council at Inverurie and Turriff finish at the end of this month and will restart in September. For those who are interested in continuing Short Form study there will be an evening class running through the summer. The Oldmeldrum class will also continue on Monday lunchtimes until late July before taking a short break.
More details to follow.

Thankyou

Huge thanks to Duncan who drove Gemma and I to play at the Twist and Spout Tent at Llama Festival (http://www.llama.org.uk/) in Devon this weekend. It was Gemma's 6th ever gig, and although it was my 550th - ish, it was my first in 3 years. We had a wonderful time, it went very well. I will post a few pics tomorrow. Duncan and I even managed some late night T'ai Chi practice at the camp site. Today he drove us back and we were able to attend the last 3 hours of Weapons Day with Duncan teaching us all the start of the Yang Staff Form that he studied in New York. Tomorrow morning I hope to go over it with Ev and get Duncan to check me during the week. I hope to share the first move and exercise with the Scottish students next weekend too.

Well done to Gemma too, she sings like an angel and plays the harp too... I will post
a link to our videos as soon as I have edited them.

There were actually 3 very aloof llamas, more of them later.

Aberdeenshire workshops 19-21 June

The next workshops with Caroline are as follows. The venue is Fetternear Hall, and each session costs £10 / £6.
Fri 19th 7-10pm: Ta Lu & stepping partnerwork. Jasmine tea will be provided.
Sat 20th 2-5pm: Long Form
Sat 20th 6.30-9.30pm: Weapons training
Sun 21st 2-5pm: Short Form and partnerwork, beginners very welcome
Sun 21st 6.30-9.30pm: Dance (San Shou)
Please bring some food to share between the sessions on Saturday and Sunday.

Master Wang Hai-Jun

This is my Chen Style teacher Master Wang Hai-Jun, with whom I train once a month in Lao-Jia, the old long Chen Form. Master Wang trained at Chen Village with renowned master Chen Zhengli since the age of 9, as his father was a family friend of the Chens and he became the first non-family Chen Master of recent times. I took Duncan along this weekend and he busked along very well. we were looking at the kick section, similarly placed in the form as the kicks section in The Yang Long Form. It was a blisteringly hot day, the hall was hot too, so we treated ourselves to organic ice cream on the way home from Kentish Town.

Two weekends ago we were on the Thames with Mary and Chris from Mark's Thursday class. They have bought this lovely boat. I am super-envious! We spent 2 days taking it down from Reading Marina to Teddington and then did a day-long jaunt to Greenwich, where we crossed the East / West Meridian. On the way back up to the mooring we were against the tide and got into all sorts of minor 'traffic' trouble with various water authorities... The weather was amazing and the company excellent. A life on the river seems very sane. Waking up to herons, coots, and the plop sounds of jumping fish was a treat. I felt like I'd had a real holiday. The thames is an incredible river, so full of life and interest around every bend. Often I did not recognise my own city, it was so green, or full of tiny ancient alleys and strange abandoned river beaches.

This is from last night, practising shoulder strike from the Dance with Duncan. It's great to have him back from USA living at mine and training with us at class 3 or 4 times a week.

Sword Form posture list

Yesterday I had a 121 on Straight Sword and afterwards asked if I could have a posture list or if Mark's list corresponded to any of the books available (such as those by Kobayashi, Chen Wei-Ming or the Olson translation). Mark dictated the names of the 54 postures that he uses and I wrote them down. Today I will type them up and email folks who I know are starting the Jian form. If you don't get a copy by the end of next week, email me and I will send one. I will also do some photocopies for classes and workshops. It won't be posted on the website resources. I will also extract the Northern Sabre postures from the 'Poem' that we use to make a short posture list. With this form, the postures are often an indication of several moves in sequence, but the list will still be useful as an aide-memoire.

It was great comparing the different nuances of meaning in all the various translations as well as large differences in names These could often be traced to homophones in the Chinese such as between 'skylark' and 'heavenly horse', both of which seem to sound like jianma.

News

I have not been blogging very much as all free time is spent in the garden, down the allotment or doing extra T'ai Chi Classes... The weather has been lovely, though dry for the garden, so most of my teaching is now outdoors. One of Mark's good students, Melissa, (in the pink top in the pictures) has just moved back to South Africa and will begin her own classes soon - Good Luck! She will be missed from class by all of us, but we are looking forward to the first T'ai Chi Centre workshop in the southern hemisphere, hopefully in a year or two! Also, Simon Darroch will be starting his own classes in Clapham shortly on a Thursday night, and Mary will be assisting. Good luck to Simon too, I am sure it'll go really well. More details soon.

Advance notice - Thursday class 9th July

As there is further renovation work planned at the Masonic Hall in Inverurie, the Long Form class on 9th July will now be held in the Friendship Room at Kemnay Hall.

Weapons Practise 6th June

The next weapons practise session is at the Masonic Hall, Inverurie 7-10pm on Saturday 6th June. We'll work on straight sword, staff, and sabre. Jasmine tea will be provided and we'll share the price of the hall (£30).

Dates for future sessions are to be confirmed.