As a young person I found I was seeking “something” not then available from my environment – an understanding of life, of people etc. With science and sports based interests I was completely unsatisfied with the mainstream western/middle-eastern religions and cultures – the far-east promised something different and Karate with its Japanese philosophical connections and a promise of physical defensive power from using the body in a different way, had a lot of attraction.
So I started in Karate while at university, where I trained for 3 years. At the time Karate was one of the few styles available and was very popular, with the UK teams being successful internationally, although over the years I realised that the sport side was not where my competence or my interest lay. My own training continued only for a couple of years after University and lapsed for several years thereafter. However like many people who have trained in martial arts for even a short period the experience stayed with me and I returned to training in my early 30s.
Along the road I achieved temporary grades a couple of times (to be automatically confirmed 6 months later) – and each time had much soul searching as these grades were often considered not quite valid – clearly the highly ranked and respected teachers that awarded them were happy about them, but many other senior grades were not. This conflict started a useful thought process and led me to notice the spiral nature of my progress. This seemed to involve me going round the same kind of development process every few years, each time challenging, learning and changing only to consolidate then go round the whole thing again in the next few years – it seems to take me about 7 to 10 years to complete a cycle.
This process was heightened by my starting Tai Chi practice in the same year I gained my first black belt grade in Karate and continued until I found other teachers who combined soft technique with hard style – finding a balance that I had not till then been aware of as a possibility. Further on I was introduced to “vital point “strategy in older style Karate and in modern Tai Chi. The sheer speed, power and brutality of this approach was frightening – it gave me much thought about the human condition – especially since the people teaching it were balanced thoughtful human beings. I found in the end that it is those very factors that give martial arts their value and meaning, and encourage us to balance ourselves with a search for the positive side of ourselves. Almost as if unconsciously we seek to fill our potential – the trick being to do this constructively not destructively. More…… read more here
Covering interacting with training partners, soft movement, partner work, single push hands, double push hands.
Venue: Shefford Community Hall, 60 High Street, Shefford Bedfordshire, SG17 5AX
9th July 2016, 9.30am – 12.30pm
Cost: £30
To book telephone 01462 621970 or email: [email protected]
Please wear suitable loose clothing and flat soled trainers or similar
I was recently asked to do an introductory Tai Chi session at the RSPB Sandy where they were having a staff wellness month with a variety of activities – on what turned out to be the only rainy day of the week! – but despite this we had a delightful lunchtime session and it was great to do some Tai Chi with “the team” under this enormous old tree in front of The Lodge HQ. I talked a bit about the history of Tai Chi and demonstrated natural movement, then the group did some loosening and posture exercises followed by the beginning of Chen style Laojia form and we finished with Q&A.
Covering working with a sword, exercises, the Chen broadsword form
Venue: Shefford Community Hall, 60 High Street, Shefford Bedfordshire, SG17 5AX
25th June 2016, 9.30am – 12.30pm
Cost: £30 per seminar
To book telephone 01462 621970 or email: [email protected]
Please wear suitable loose clothing and flat soled trainers or similar
It seems to me that when we pattern our bodies through practice – directed by thought – to work according to Tai Chi principles – then we set up an internal pattern of muscle and nerve activation which feels like (and actually is) a flow of movement within our bodies that will be experienced differently for each of us.
This feeling will follow the route of the sequential nerve activation and associated muscular action – in other words the patterned habitual way of moving actually creates an internal pattern of quite substantial order on an otherwise somewhat random internal environment – and can then become a way of directing our development by monitoring the way the feeling develops with practice and the way we are able to operate in the external world e.g. with others in partner practice and in normal daily tasks. Consequently we can anticipate this feeling becoming more noticeable and more defined as we practice. Read the full article HERE
We have had some useful discussion in classes recently, with a lot of people expressing their interest in more senior training. I am therefore pleased to let you know that I will be extending the Hitchin class on Fridays to 2 ½ hours from May 27 in order to accommodate this.
At the same time I will slightly restructure the evening class formats as follows:
Friday at Hitchin Baptist Hall – 7.00 to 8.30 beginners @ £7 – with seniors 7.00 to 9.30 @ £10
Sunday at Shefford Community Hall – 6.30 to 8.00 beginners @ £7 – with seniors 6.30 to 9.00 @ £10
Wednesday at Luton Chaul End Community Hall – 8.00 to 9.00 @ £7 mixed class.
This will allow beginners to focus on the initial learning stages while seniors can practice in greater depth to their own capability alongside – then at the Friday and Sunday classes seniors can stay for a further hour of advanced training.
Those looking to further their interest would be welcome to come to any of the seminars scheduled this year or to arrange a private session.”
One of my students has a long standing lower back condition which flared up recently to the point that his doctor thought he had slipped a disc – after a couple of weeks rest he came with a few others of the group to my teacher Karel Koskuba for a 3 hour seminar. Before we got started a couple of other students mentioned their own back problems – so we spent at least the first hour working on a very slow exercise for the back.
The other day I asked how his back problem was doing and this was the reply:
“The back is doing very well thank you.
The Karel visit really did the trick, and motivated me to get back to my training, because I was very nervous about putting any strain on my back.
The chat we had with Karel on standing triggered some thinking, as did the small slow movement over time.
As a result I was standing on Tuesday morning, and about 15 minutes in I noticed a small horizontal muscle group in my lower back was tense, I relaxed it, no idea how, and immediately the hips dropped forward. The back straitened, sciatica disappeared completely, and the tension in my right knee went.
I did 30 minutes standing and felt I could have carried on for another 30 minutes – totally relaxed.
What I’ve noticed now is that my chest is tense, not relaxed and not connected to the rest of me and feels like it’s limiting my breathing – something else to work on next.
– I haven’t had many breakthroughs as big as this and it was a bit of a shocker at the time 🙂 “
A Tai Chi residential seminar weekend from Friday afternoon through to Sunday afternoon – an opportunity to learn, explore and develop your Tai Chi in a quiet relaxed atmosphere.
Classes in Chen Laojia form, Broadsword form, Chi Kung, Tai Chi exercises – silk reeling, Partner work and Push Hands. Open to existing students plus anyone with previous experience of Tai Chi. Class restricted to 12 people.
Venue: Belsey Bridge, Ditchingham, Bungay, Suffolk, NR35 2DZ
Cost: £290 (en-suite)
Payment at time of booking.
Late booking fee of £30 after 1st August
Includes tuition with full board
To book call Ian Deavin on 01462 621970
I am not going to attempt a full review of The Global Minotaur – only to say that for anybody interested in the present world situation – economic, political, social – this is a “must read” – Yanis Varoufakis ( ex finance minister of Greece ) explains simply and clearly how we got where we are and where it is likely to go. This is obviously not overtly a Tai Chi book but should be of interest to anybody seeking to understand the truth of their situation and that of the world we humans inhabit – maybe as close as we get to an exposition of “reality” in world affairs. Well worth the purchase price and very relevant to the current EU in/out debate.
An early piece – written when I was transitioning from Karate to Tai Chi and so perhaps useful also to readers in a similar situation.
Over some years now it has been important to me to gain an understanding of the principles underlying body usage in martial arts – the following is a collection of models that have come from that study – some interpreted from descriptions given to me by teachers and others coming from my own observations – nonetheless they are all simply attempts to describe what I have experienced of an age old practice, in ways that can aid training. They are not new principles – simply descriptions of old ones. Consequently it should be remembered that these models are not exclusive but each can be considered to represent a different facet of the same real body operation in order to illustrate the concepts involved.
These are particularly western models in the main and are predominantly mechanical in nature – a style that the western mind seems to be more comfortable with in comparison to the Chinese models that are available.
Read the full article Here
