Hot T'ai Chi!

As usual, the workshop is during a very hot week, but the hall is cooler than my boat, so I am happy to be there. Here's a few pics so far. We are there today and tomorrow, do join us, even if you can only pop in for a session or two. Great work and vibe from everyone, thankyou!

lots of partner work

salutations

Short Form on the riverfront

push hands and talu at dusk

very serious people

121s in Aberdeenshire

I am off to the woods tomorrow but will still get emails and texts... So let me know if you'd like a 121 next weekend. I have slots on the Saturday and Sunday mornings. And don't forget we are at Finzean on the Saturday for our annual midsummer Deeside jaunt. Love from the river, Caro,

More photos from the workshop

Sabre

Pushing hands

Open and close

Form by the water

Salutations

Applications

Here are some more pictures from the week, it has been too hot to be indoors here since the workshop ended, so much online stuff has gone undone. Now it is time for me to be offline and to relax, and I hope you will too. Tonight I will ask Mark to tell me the term start date, and I will post it here before I go away. Also, go and do the Fleet Footing walk (see earlier post), it is wonderful, and will make you see London in a different light. I have now been to the source of the Fleet, discovered parts of Hampstead heath I did not know, and taken its source water to the Thames, returning it at Hampton Court. That is possibly the first time the Fleet has flowed directly into the Thames upstream! Anyway, it tickled me. I shall be around a bit this summer, as like today, I shall be covering Kevin's class for the veterans later in the month, so will be contactable, if a bit tardy in replying. Also, read Davina's post about the Autumn workshop and do come along!
Have a wonderful summer.

More workshop photos

Here's a few more, now that I have a little time to myself, for what seems like the first time in several months. I will sort all the lovely pictures this week, and post more soon. If you took any good ones, please email them to me.

Sunset at the venue

Form outside on the jetty

Last day of the workshop

Anja getting me with Single Whip application.

Fleet Footing details

http://www.catherinekontz.com/fleet-footing/

Fleet Footing is a downloadable work combining music, maps and gentle interactive performance with a walk charting the course of London’s lost river. Take the walk any time you like, do it in stages, or if you’re not in London, you could map an imaginary Fleet onto the landscape wherever you are and go for a walk with the album anyway. It uses binaural recording so is specially made for listening to on headphones.

The Fleet has flowed into the Thames for thousands of years, turning a Roman watermill, transporting convicts to the colonies, hosting health spas and bear baiting and slums. It’s largely underground now, but if you know where to look - and if you listen hard enough - you can still find her flowing beneath your feet. The Thames Tideway Scheme will soon be diverting the Fleet straight into a new super sewer - improving water quality in the Thames (yay!) but ending a conversation older than London. At this end of an era, Fleet Footing celebrates and mourns the Fleet and all those who’ve lived and died along her banks.

Download the album and maps, get your walking boots on and go find that river.

(Just got this from Sarah. I will be there on 3rd August.)

Riverside T'ai Chi

Final session of an excellent day was down by the river, as the sun set and the temperature dropped to something a little more mellow. After class, several folks swum in the great river.

Sam Masich arts

We have just had a lovely few days seeing our dear friend T'ai Chi Master Sam Masich. We met a Taichi Caledonia many years ago, and have hung out since whenever our lives allow. In the new T'ai Chi studio we have almost completed, pride of place goes to a beautiful ink painting made with one brush stroke, from the founding myths of T'ai Chi. Sam gave it to me in 2009, but it will now get the wider viewing it deserves. Like Mark and myself, Sam makes music and art as well as teaching his internal arts. If you'd like to see more of his great drawings and paintings, many of which are available for sale, have a look here. Here is a picture of the painting in situ. Thanks to Sam for a great visit, and much insight. Friendship in Tao is a great joy. I have been rereading the 9th Century poems of Han Shan, and even then, drinking tea or wine on a boat, and laughing with friends on the Way was greatly valued, and worth a good poem.

I call to my friends, picking lotus,
Wonderfully afloat on the clear river,
And forget, in my delight, how late it grows,
Till gusts of evening wind whirl by.
Waves scoop up the mandarin ducks;
Ripples rock the broad-tailed mallard;
At this moment, sitting in my boat,
Thoughts pour out in endless streams.

(Trans Burton Watson)

Life on the (great) river

Not at all related to T'ai Chi, but to the river... A good friend of ours is selling her lovely boat on a residential mooring. Insert sentence here about 'hen's teeth'. You can have a look at www.lifeontheriver.net

September photos

Dark Mountain Basecamp at Embercombe. Wonderful people and place.

Little house boat on the lake at Embercombe, one of the few places I had a moment of home-envy.

...but then I came home.

The Pre-Norman art basket is in full swing, I will blog about it when it is finished.

Teaching in warm sunshine this weekend in Aberdeenshire. Wonderful work by all and good atmosphere - thanks to all who came and to P and D for having us again.

New partnerwork exercise, looking forward to sharing this one.

Annual fungi foray...

...always a delight to find comedy mushrooms. This is a rather cheeky orange birch bolete, next to unidentified 'lbj' (little brown job). If it's not edible, medicinal, useful or poisonous, sadly I probably haven't learned it over the years.

Lots of chanterelles, plenty of ceps, orange birch, brown birch and bay boletes, some deceivers and a bowl of brambles. We dried the boletes and processed the chanterelles for frying in butter and freezing. Some also went into a pie which was very tasty. Real thanks to the woods of Aberdeenshire for their bounty.

The Thames at 4mph

A few weeks ago I assisted a friend in delivering a narrowboat from Abingdon to Penton Hook. It was scorching hot and very bright both days, with no shade from the sun. For a while I sat in the bow cabin out of the sun, and took this film from the bow deck, somewhere up-river before Henley. Enjoy.

Whilst I am waiting...

...for my broadband guy to come and connect me, here's a scene from this morning.

New cygnets from the up-river swan pair.

They come to the slip way every day to rest, preen, and eat any porridge I put their way.

I am still deep in T'ai Chi admin re the workshop and general classes, as well as meeting new students who want to come along, and answering email enquiries. I am hoping the elusive land-line broadband will make this all a bit more swift, but we'll see.

Sunny great river

Boat for rent on the Thames

A lovely wide-beam boat belonging to a friend has become available for rent here near Hampton Court. It's a wonderful boat, with wood burning range / stove / hot water, wood lined cabins, mod cons and loads of room. My friend can let it out for 4-6 months from June, price negotiable. It may also be available to rent during the T'ai Chi weeklong workshop, sleeping 2-3 folks, if a longer term tenant is not found. Please do get in touch with me if you or a friend are interested in a taste of life afloat.

A rescue and gosling possibilities

Happy first day of spring! Just watched a gallant  rescue of some rowers stuck fast against the weir booms, one in the water (brr). In other news, the local friendly geese (we call these ones 'the hopeful geese' as they are always hopeful of some food; a term coined for their local goose family by Chris and Mary of Thursday class) are definitely expecting a big clutch of eggs. Mrs Hopeful can barely waddle as she's so broad now. I shall try to take a photo of her shortly without disturbing them and getting hissed at by Mr Hopeful. It's all go here.

 

Locks and keepers

There is some awesome engineering on the River Thames. Here the Victorian weirs (foreground) are being replaced with modern ones (background). The EA are doing an excellent job. Our local lockie Steve was also recently in the news.

The Cutty Sark

Today I spent a short time in Greenwich with my sister and we saw the Cutty Sark in her new display area (from the outside). What a wonderful ship, beautifully restored, copper bottom gleaming, and really well displayed. Then we went mud-larking at the South Bank, and I found some treasure, or at least lots of lovely shards of colourful broken pottery that I use for mosaic. I love the beaches of the Thames at low tide: these are liminal spaces that don't exist as dry land except when the water recedes...

local swans

Saw the youngster (left) flying with his parents for the first time this week, wonderful. I've known this couple for over a year, and they introduced their cygnet this May.

York photos

Green Man, Chapter House vestibule, York Minster

The River Ouse in Central York

The 'Heart of Yorkshire' window

Over the Summer we did a fair bit of T'ai Chi here at Buccleuch Gardens:

In future there may be some Sunday sessions with Mark here, and when I am in Richmond, this is where I do 121s. In the Summer it's gorgeous, the river flows by within 30m. Wrapping up warm is a good idea in cold weather, but it is well covered, and there is a fab cafe (Hollyhocks) a 1 minute sprint away. More about the gardens here.  You can see the bustop in the first picture, 'Nightingale Lane' bus route 65, or a 10 min walk from Richmond Tube and Rail Station.

Hampton, from the river.