Stability and flow seem to be at odds with each other. Stability can mean rigidity, or at least, it seems to conjure up something fixed, sturdy, and unmoving. Flow isn’t any of those things. It’s fluid and changing. So how does Energy Arts Senior Instructor Craig Barnes blend the two so seamlessly?
Recently, Craig taught a workshop about awakening energetic sensitivity, drawn from principles of Dragon and Tiger Qigong. We worked a lot on the opening of the set.
We are about to start the Early Fall session at Brookline Tai Chi and I’ve been thinking a lot about how to teach the introductory class. The challenge, when you learn tai chi for the first time, is all about mindset. I want to see if I can teach them “how to learn tai chi” as much as actually teaching tai chi. This might sound like a beginner-only problem, but I have a challenge for more experienced readers at the end of this post and I’m wondering if you can keep up with my beginners on this one.
I’m heading home to Boston tomorrow, but I’ve already begun looking through my notes and thinking about what I will personally practice and what I’ll be able to share with my students in classes this coming year. Here are some of my initial thoughts:
How Material is Woven together over a Month: Day to day we’re looking at really small specific pieces but now going back through my notes, I can start to see different threads that run throughout the duration of the month.
Week 3 wraps up and testing is right around the corner. What was Bruce’s big message as we prepare for testing? Work your ass off and cram all night for the big test? Not quite. You might be surprised. Check it out:
A Lesson about Integration: The biggest thing that Bruce is emphasizing in the last couple days of class is that with this stage of the training, a month long training, you need integration time.
Here’s my Week 2 update. Some big milestones this week: group 1 finished the form and group 2 has been languishing in the purgatory that is holding static postures. Check it out:
Inner Form vs. Outer Form In the two groups, we’re doing very different things. The group one just finished the form this week. So on Thursday after they finished it, we came in Friday, and it was a really interesting dividing line.
We’re a week into the Wu Tai Chi short form instructor training in Brighton, UK, with Lineage Holder Bruce Frantzis. So far we’ve been completely rebuilding our forms, working on Tai Chi leg power, and exploring the meditative aspects of the art. Check it out:
On Rebuilding Your Form: It’s crazy when you come at these things, you’re completely rebuilding your Tai Chi form. We’re about two-thirds of the way through the form and it feels so different.
In June, between sessions at Brookline Tai Chi and during master classes with Bruce Frantzis, a small group of students got a special treat. Energy Arts Senior Instructor Lee Burkins was in town to train with Bruce, and on one of the nights off, he offered a special evening course on a topic he calls “Investing in Loss”. What I love about studying with someone like Lee is that he’s a practitioner whose art has soaked so deeply into his bones, that it practically oozes out of his DNA.
We’re running a little experiment at Brookline Tai Chi to see if providing students with practice reminders, ahead of time, will make them more comfortable starting the Gods Playing in the Clouds chi gung class this summer. Read about the course here.
The set is made up of six, repetitive spherical movements and I think, if students have a chance to practice the basic shapes before the class starts, they will be much more comfortable and ready to learn the nuances of the internal work that goes into these basic shapes.
Posts about code and work and some tai chi archives too