Leaving Stirling

Tonight is the last night of Taichi Caledonia and I am off to the chalet to pack as it's an early morning tomorrow. I've had an excellent week and would highly recommend it to my students, and anyone who is interested in exchange of ideas, widening their horizons and seeing what other styles and approaches to T'ai Chi are like. I will write a bigger entry when I get home next week, but a few things stand out from the last few days.

I have been pushing hands, learning rooting exercises and generally having a really productive time with a wonderful german guy called Walther. I was delighted to find out that he had studied with Dr Chi in Germany for a week-long intensive many years ago, and we have talked about how Dr Chi felt when Walther pushed him. I will gather the stories he told me today and write them up very soon...

During the mornings I have been studying with Henk Janssen, a great teacher from Netherlands. Last night we were the last folks to go into the chalets (it is light until midnight here) as we were sharing our slightly different versions of Ta Lu and sabre form, as well as me being given plenty of pushes I could not yet yield to. For the two evenings of pushing hands, free pushing and the like, I have always been half of the last pair to stop for the night. It has been a good challenge to engage in the free pushing techniques more customary to some of the other players here, but really rewarding. I'm in a mode where I see more similarities than differences, and without exception all the patnerwork I saw was cultivating something of use or interest. I'm looking forward to sharing a couple of things from Henk and Walther, in particular, with my students. The whole week has been great, but I am also even more appreciative of the depth and quality of my teacher's tuition, and will be happy to get to class on Sunday.

In the afternoons I have been training with renowned Chen Style Master Wang Hai Jun who has been teaching a short form of 18 moves taken from the original 'Old Form'. The stances are very low and dynamic but the silk-reeling is very strong and drives all the movements. Master Wang's teaching is very direct and clear with emphasis on internal relaxation and ward-off energy coming right round from the back. A side effect of 3 hours' low stances every day is that my upper legs are now quite a different shape.

Lastly, I have been practising alot of sabre form and spiralling. The intermittent sunshine suddenly became hot today and I got a bit burnt. However It is just so nice to be surrounded by trees and seeing lots of other T'ai Chi folk practising whatever they are working on. The campus is also overrun by rabbits and squirrels as well as there being a noisy blackbird outside my window every morning which is having a turf-war with the resident thrush. Oddly there is just one jet black wild rabbit, which appears to have leopard-like brownish-black on black fur markings and sleeps with its ears down outside my window all day. I have tried to photograph it for the blog, but it's pretty reclusive.

Back to Tooting tomorrow. Totally missing going to Mark's classes, doing The Dance with David and eating my own home cooked food.