I’m getting excited about Immersion Week at BTC next month, where we’ll take another look at the Spine Stretch and the Three Swings. Another look? Like we’ve done it before? Yes! Why is it exciting to go back to the same qigong sets over and over again? So-called creative people understand better than most that there is nothing new under the sun. Working with boulders of granite, with empty stages, with blank paper, they are credited with making something out of nothing, but that isn’t exactly what they do.

I’m very excited to share some news about two big projects with you today: Brookline Tai Chi’s annual Immersion Week and the publication of the Tai Chi Way to Better Balance as a physical book.

Join me from Tuesday, April 22 - Friday, April 25 at Brookline Tai Chi in Boston for Energy Gates Moving Qigong Exercises. Times, cost, and registration details in the link. The Tai Chi Way to Better Balance is now available for purchase on Amazon, but you can also get your copy of the physical book directly from the publisher.

I’m running a little experiment right now at Brookline Tai Chi to see if we can help our students develop better home practice habits. Specifically, I’m experimenting with self-reporting and automated reminders to spark daily practice sessions outside of class. Now, when I talk to other people in our international tai chi community, I realize what a powerful practice aid Brookline Tai Chi already is. What I mean is, the bricks-and-mortar experience of coming to the school and being around other people removes so many barriers people have to doing tai chi.

I keep learning and re-learning this lesson. Be very careful about calling someone, or even thinking about someone as a “former student”. Of course, at BTC, we tend to think that way all the time. We work hard to keep people in classes, and when students don’t come back, it’s very easy to see the enrollment numbers, not the people behind them. Why don’t people come back? See? Even asking the question that way makes it seem like a “

I’ve been working on this video, documenting an instructor training we recently hosted at Brookline Tai Chi:

Our director, Perry, selected music, but YouTube came back saying it was copyright infringement to use that track. Ok…so it gave me an alternative called AudioSwap. This is unbelievable. Basically, YouTube has a soundtrack generation engine, that you can browse by genre and artist and even filter per the length of your video.