Happy New Year!

I wish you a peaceful and loving 2017. 

Slainte!

Solstice eve

It's Winter Solstice tomorrow and I shall be feasting around the fire with friends, as well as ignoring the internet and all things computer-related until the New Year! If you can, join me in returning to the real world. Thanks to all students and colleagues for a wonderful year of T'ai Chi. Wherever you are and which ever day you celebrate, I hope it is peaceful and heartening.

Here's a few last photos from December. 

Well done Short Form group, in stillness of Wuji, after completing learning Short Form. 

Tuesday senior group are learning knife-edge kick from The Dance. Very good fun with the pad brought in by Janet. 

Scott uproots me effortlessly yesterday by bending the back leg and moving forwards as though underneath me. 

Alistair repelling Paolo with a classic 'Play Guitar'. 

Dawn at Balvack. It's mid-winter northern Scotland, so I wasn't actually up that early...

Collection of sun-lit malas and rosaries: Taoist, Buddhist and Marian. 

Ripples left by the local diving juvenile Great Crested Grebe, just now. 

Happy new year from the great river. 

Turriff term dates

The last week of term is this Monday 12th December. 
The class will restart on 9th January 2017  and  more details will be published nearer the time.

Aberdeenshire December workshops

The last workshops of the year with Caroline are this coming weekend 16-18th December. All workshops are at Balvack, except for Weapons which is at Fetternear Hall.
Great River students of any level are particularly welcome to the Saturday sessions.

Friday 7-10pm: Weapons, including Sabre for beginners 7-8pm (£5). Click here for more details
Saturday 1-4pm: Short Form, and related study
Saturday 5.30-8.30pm: Partnerwork
Sunday 1-4pm: Long Form
Sunday 5.30-8.30pm: Advanced Studies and Dance (more info available here).

The price is £15 (concs available) per 3 hr session. Please bring food to share on Saturday and Sunday. Get in touch with your instructor if you need travel directions or feel free to contact me with any other questions.

All the dates for the 2017 Aberdeenshire workshops are available here

Plaistow class

Thanks to all who came last night and made our first Plaistow class so great. Thanks again to Jon for his generosity in hosting us. It added a level of challenge to finish the Short Form without thinking about the delicious sourdough flat breads  we could smell baking in the kitchen. Not an issue I have ever had in 19 years T'ai Chi.

We did the warm ups, Short Form, questions and applications, Salutations and another Short Form, finishing with 5 Element Chi Gung. 

In The New Year we will begin the Long Form, revision for some, new for others. By request, as we go through the form we will learn each application, and how to give the right 'attack' for our partner to do each posture just so. This is the famous 'imaginary ninja' made flesh. It's very good fun and really helps with learning and remembering postures, as well as noticing when you're not yielding, retreating or noodling. It's also a classic way to learn, and Master TT Liang recommended this way of working as very beneficial. 

Formal push hands will take a back seat for a while as the applications will make great partnerwork. 

Next session will be on 6th Jan 7-9pm (jasmine tea and home made bread afterwards!). Let me know if you'd like to come along and to get the address. All who have finished Short Form are welcome, cost £10, £6 concs. 

121 in Aberdeenshire

Sunday morning is still free. Let me know if you'd like it. I have an early train on the Monday so I can't fit in a session then.

News

Last classes of Mark's term next week. Return on 10th Jan (with Sword and Sabre).

New Long Form group for those who finished Short Form will start in February. 

Also, probable new Sabre group for those who have finshed Short Form. 

Please get in touch for calendars, they'll be ready for New Year. 

First of our Friday monthly sessions in Plaistow this Friday 7-9pm. Get in touch for the address. All who have finished Short Form are welcome. 

121s are available with me all over the holidays. Get in touch if you fancy coming to the river for an hour or two of T'ai Chi. Tea and a roaring fire included. 

Thanks to Mark for a great class last night. 

Morning mist yesterday. 

Shorter session this Thursday

Sorry for the late notice but have just found out that we can only have the small room at Monymusk from 8-10pm this week, 8th December.
Next week is the final session of the year and we'll be in the Main Hall 7-10pm.
First session of 2017 will be on Thursday 12th January.

Today: Late afternoon sun, low tide, turning.

Plaistow class on Friday

All GR and TCC students are welcome to this pre-Christmas session from 79pm on Friday 9th. Get in touch for details.

Sabre and Sword this week

...at Mark's classes 6th and 8th December.

Aberdeenshire Workshops 2017

The 2017 dates for Caroline's workshops in Aberdeenshire are now confirmed. Click on the flyer below to get a larger, printable version.

The format of each weekend will be Weapons on Friday evening, Short Form and associated Partnerwork on Saturdays, Long Form and Dance/Heartwork/Partnerwork on Sundays.

All weapons workshops will be at Fetternear Hall. The venue for other sessions will be published on the blog nearer the time. The price will be £16 (£12 concession) for each 3 hour session. There will be a reduced price for the Sabre beginners sessions.

The Autumn Intensive with Master Mark Raudva will be held 14-16 October at Fetternear Hall, with a weapons workshop on 13th October.

Caroline's final visit of this year will be 16-18th December. More details to follow. All welcome !

Calendars

I'm a wee bit late getting the orders in for these this year so let me know if you'd like a desk or wall calendar. Not sure of exact price yet but it will be around £5 desk / £8 wall. Summer and Autumn workshops will be marked on it along with the usual public holidays, etc.

New Long Form group

Very exciting news: as the Short Form group from Tuesdays are just anout to finish learning the Form, Mark has decided that from Feb 7th they will begin learning Long Form. Well done to a great group on completing Short Form. You will still get to do it each week as part of the class.

There are enough new Short Form beginners to have that running separately in the first half of Tuesday class. (After tea break Dance study continues as usual). Dance students can enjoy seeing LF postures and applications again too. We have some fun ways with applications in Aberdeenshire, see earlier post and pictures, that may now make their way to London. 

The new Long Form group 6.30- tea break will also be advertised on taichifinder.co.uk as before, so eligible students from elsewhere may join us in February. 

London term dates for Mark

Last classes of this term will be Tuesday December 13th and Thursday 15th.

First classes of 2017 will be 10th and 12th January, and will include Sword and Sabre. 

(Now so many folks do weapons, we have Sword and Sabre on first week of a month, even January and September.)

121s with me continue over the holiday, so feel free to get in touch for some festive study. Tea and cake provided...

Service Information

Last weekend

Thanks to all who came despite the freezing weather, it was a great weekend. Well done especially to those learning the Long Form for the first time who are doing some excellent work. Here's a couple of pictures from the session where we did all the applications of the Long Form in order up to Single Whip. Each had an assistant to be our attacker, giving just the right punch or push to do the form just-so.

Foreground: Preparing for elbow strike during Single Whip. Background double pull down after yield in Beginning. 

Ward-off Right - Split happens...

No show for me tonight

A points failure at Stonehaven means both Davina and I are stuck on trains for the foreseeable. Sorry about tonight. Will answer sword and sabre questions tomorrow.

Delay in arriving for weapons class tonight

There has been a fatality on the train line I am on right now, and so I may well be delayed in arriving at class tonight. Senior students please help the juniors and show them a new sabre posture. It will be interesting for me to see how well you passed it on... I will make it up with some lovely sword details later. 

Booking an earlier train would not have helped. Davina is 1 hr ahead and has also been badly delayed. 

Apologies again. Caro. 

Fitzwilliam Museum

If you have a chance to - go see 'Colour' at The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. The museum is free and is quite simply one of the most wonderful museums I have ever been to. 'Colour' is an exhibition about the science, colour and history of illuminated manuscripts, and it was wonderful. The day's revelation was the rest of the museum: I saw paintings and drawings by many favourites: Stanley Spencer, Gwen John, Walter Sickert; a superb print by John Piper, ceramics by Lucie Rie, Edmund De Waal and the incomparable Bernard Leach. There were incredible funerary portraits in encaustic from Roman Egypt, which I had always wanted to see in the flesh. Heartbreakingly beautiful Syrian objects from places now sacked and destroyed by IS. I saw ancient Minoan pottery, which I adore, including some famously covered with marine life, such as their distinctive bold octopus motifs. There were stunning African portrait busts, pots and carvings from Nubia and Sudan; geometric, 'modern' and true, over five hundred years before the egos of Picasso and others of his era appropriated so much from so many. By the end of Tuesday I was drunk on beauty and needed to go home and rest my eyes on nothing much. The museum is free, and if you in the South of England, or are travelling from London, then if you book a week or two ahead, the train tickets are quite reasonable. It's a 20 minute walk from the station to the museum. The museum's online resources are also superb.