Shefford Tai Chi will again welcome visitors to our annual Tai Chi Festival – held on World Tai Chi and Chi Kung Day – which is always on the last Saturday of April – so in 2023 it will be on 29th April from 10.00 to 4.00pm at the Shefford Community Hall, just off the High Street next to the chip shop at SG17 5AX.
This is our 6th year of running these open days and we are delighted to again invite anybody interested to explore the health and other benefits of Tai Chi, to drop in for a chat, a free sample class or to watch a demonstration.
We would also welcome other local martial arts and alternative therapy practitioners to join us in presenting demonstrations, sample treatments or simply to discuss their art with visitors ( there is no charge to participate and visitor entry is free of charge). If you are a local group that would fit within the alternative health and martial arts description and would like to do a demonstration, please contact Ian. at mobile 07860 218334 or email [email protected]
We do seem to have a lot of bank holidays in the next weeks so please note that classes will not take place as follows:
Sunday 9th April Shefford
Monday 10th April Shefford and Flitwick
Monday 1st May Flitwick
Monday 8th May Flitwick
Monday 29 May Flitwick
Our first class at Flitwick Village Hall on Monday morning – 11.30 – went really well with an enthusiastic group who had a very pleasant time doing our relaxed exercises to loosen and strengthen our bodies, – for the first half hour. This was followed by a session of learning the first simple movements from the Laojia form – a choreographed pattern that provides a basis for regular practice and for us to learn how to move in a Tai Chi way.
That is to say relaxed movement from the centre with good connection throughout the body. In order to achieve this we initially worked on loosening and then focused on an upright posture allowing relaxed alignment of our structure.
Flitwick Village Hall is a lovely venue for Tai Chi – there is a load of space with pleasant outlook and plenty of parking. The floor is excellent and the acoustics are good – I look forward to building a very friendly class. See here for details of classes in Flitwick.
Congruence is simply the development of body, mind, and spirit around compatible effective world models – traditionally referred to as the six harmonies. For example a mental model of hard/soft balance may be developed in our bodies as an effective way to move and in our emotional selves as a way to deal with tensions and with life in general. The way that these three aspects interconnect is greatly empowered by their compatibility.
Thus Taoism and Buddhism guide our physical training and combine to give us hard/soft Tai Chi movement.
We should carefully consider the Tai Chi principles of relax, move from the centre and be connected ( one thing moves, everything moves). Essentially if we learn to relax and move then everything follows. The rest is adaptation ie it is about how to use that way of moving.
One could certainly make a very good case that body/sports science was originated by the early Tai Chi practitioners or their Taoist and martial arts forerunners – since core to Tai Chi is the idea of observing and creating a balanced body structure. This inevitably takes us to look at our soft tissue condition including slow twitch muscles and facia which then involves working with our emotional/mental training to promote an integrated organism.
It seems to me that there is a natural pathway from hard external training ( and hard opinions! ) in our youth leading to soft ( internal) training in our middle years followed by a phase of interest in healing.
I see this reflected all around me so it seems to be not just a martial arts thing – but perhaps more obvious in that arena – for example I have moved from Karate in my twenties to Tai Chi in my forties and am now ( in my seventies) very involved with falls prevention.
Everyone ( I suspect ) could play chopsticks with a little trainingand that is fine for most people – for example to improve balance enough to greatly reduce vulnerability to falls. The World Health Organisation researched falls prevention exercises and found that Tai Chi (and a similar commercial program) reduced vulnerability by 50%.
This may be why we now have a World Tai Chi and Chi Kung Day on the last Saturday of April each year.
On the other hand to become a concert pianist takes a lot more effort.
Similarly whether performing Chopsticks or a major classical work we would expect to learn some good time before the performance – not wait until the due date. Likewise we should not wait until we need the skill of Tai Chi eg when we have a “fall”, but should learn before we can foresee the need and still have the energy to learn.
Which is why I often refer to an “Over 50s” class – if you start to learn at 50 then you will have learned enough by the time you need it – probably around 60?
Although let’s be fair to do Tai Chi at any level one needs to be at least a bit serious – but the continuum is quite wide, from people who practice once a week for health all the way up to students who practice for many hours each day and have world-class martial arts skills. Like any other physical skill development requires commitment at an appropriate level.
I am delighted to be running a new beginners Tai Chi class in Flitwick for 2023 – this will be at Flitwick Village Hall on Monday mornings beginning on March 20th 2023 and then weekly as a drop-in from 11.30am to 12.30 pm at £10 per class, so if you have been considering Tai Chi or would simply like to try it, then this would be an excellent opportunity.
