When you spend a month training Tai Chi 10-12 hours a day, what happens when you go home? What does it feel like several months later when your life has returned to normal? Is it a let down? Do you need to be inspired again to continue your training? What have you continued to discover about your practice? How has the intensive training infused your teaching? I sat down with several Energy Arts Tai Chi instructors to discuss these issues for Episode 3 of Qigong Radio.
We’re hosting Bruce Frantzis for a Push Hands Intensive this week at Brookline Tai Chi. The training is being filmed and it will become the Push Hands module of the Tai Chi Mastery Program, due out later this year. Here are my thoughts so far on how the Push Hands component fits in with what we did this past summer in Brighton:
Here’s a little peek into our daily training routine in Brighton. You can see there was lots of partner work, holding postures and form practice. Of course, it was very serious the whole time! Thanks to Aimo for the photos. Click here for all the photos.
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.
