April 9, 2014
Everyday wear for me is logo tshirt and training trousers, so it's nice to dress up once in a while. Dressing up was certainly required last night, when I went to an art book launch in a swanky tower block in Canary Wharf.... on the 30th floor, with stunning viewsin every direction.
My tai chi teacher, Sifu Gary Wragg, was having his book launched - it's a retrospective on the past decades of his art, with fantastic pictures all through it.
There were large (and I mean wall-sized large) paintings of his hung everywhere, so it took quite a while to walk round them all. Apparently the largest wouldn't fit in the goods lift, being 7m long. There were also a couple of really tiny ones, by contrast.
They were abstract art, which I myself am far to repressed to do (I like Tudor, Persian and Egyptian art, which all have specific rules), but is fasinating to see, especially to see so much of it. Freedom in abstraction! People who want to see more can visit his own website at http://www.garywraggstudio.co.uk/
Various tai chi friends turned up, and I caught up with my former chiropracter too ;) I can't recommend him highly enough - starting tai chi meant I saw myself in huge mirrors and noticed something weird about my shape - hunched over, vulture neck, listing to one side, etc - which he cured, so now I am straight and look at myself happily in mirrors (no vanity there then! (g)).
Anyway, at the end of the evening our little group left en masse heading for the Tube, each carrying a tote bag with the 2 volume book set in it, so that we looked like some kind of group of cult members ;)
Posted by Fiona Anderson..
March 25, 2014
Many people are surprised to learn there can be gradings and belts in tai chi. This is because many clubs don't do them, but instead focus on the health aspects of tai chi. Then again some clubs which do include the martial aspects, don't do gradings either, but have their own systems of encouraging progress.
Those clubs that do do gradings don't necessarily use the same colours for each stage, but instead can arbitrarily decide on whatever colours they like and whatever stages they like. T...
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Posted by Fiona Anderson..
March 25, 2014
Having a goal is entirely the wrong way to approach tai chi. Just coming along and doing the lesson, then working on whatever little section you're at, is a much better approach.
Having goals leads to frustration if you don't achieve them quickly. When you abandon goals and instead just work on having a process, you make much more solid progress. Approaching tai chi as a process, means you learn to work in the moment, doing what you're doing, and you learn to relax as part of that process.
The...
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Posted by Fiona Anderson..
March 25, 2014
Talking to one of my friends, it came up in the conversation that we'd both been to physios and been given loads of exercises. That might sound like a good thing, but it's actually unrealistic for most people: Most people are out of the habit of doing any exercise, let alone loads of them. My take on it, is to pick a couple off the list and work on those - otherwise having so many exercises is daunting and people will probably drop the lot.
With tai chi, it's a way into exercise for those of u...
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Posted by Fiona Anderson..
March 25, 2014
A friend of mine in hospital asked me if tai chi could be done without standing up. Although asked as a joke, this is actually what I do with some of my clients.... Certain clients have mobility issues and others feel like sitting down is where they're at.
For such clients, I've devised a routine that's a combination of tai chi breathing exercises (chi kung) and tai chi massage, which they feel happy to try out and persevere at. With one such group, I've been doing this for 3 months or so and...
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Posted by Fiona Anderson..
March 24, 2014
This article appeared in Anxious Times, the magazine of Anxiety UK. The link to their site is on our Links page.
Most
people have heard of tai chi's benefits for physical health, but what
you may not have heard is that it can also be beneficial for
improving mental health too.
I
used to suffer from such severe anxiety that when I first started tai
chi, it was six months before I could speak to the chief instructor.
At that time I used to find it hard to practise anything because I
was so stre...
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Posted by Fiona Anderson..
March 14, 2014
This is so common - people are worried about their hands and arms, when really these are just the icing on the cake. The cake is your feet and where your weight is. Once you really get in touch with feeling your weight and where that is in your feet, then the arms become much easier.
So by all means follow and copy the arm movements, but don't stress about them. If you concentrate your attention in your feet, that is 90% of the job done. The arms will come in time....
It's especially useful fo...
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Posted by Fiona Anderson..
March 2, 2014
I've finally finished the draft text for my book on teaching children tai chi. Now to get others to read and comment on it, then to have more photos of kids taken, then finally to have my webmeister (see links page) turn it into the format needed for an ebook.
Having an extended support team has made the process all much easier - people to take photos, people to read through, people to webify it, etc etc. Indeed this whole website relies on their very practical support and encouragement - t...
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Posted by Fiona Anderson..
February 22, 2014
It's a great pleasure to introduce the first of our guest bloggers, Karen Dabrowski. Karen is a
member of Wu’s Tai Chi Chuan Academy, is a freelance journalist
available for commissioned articles, editing, secretarial services,
proofreading and transcripts: karendabrowski606@yahoo.co.uk You can go to our links page to contact her...
Enjoy her article!
Tai
Chi: the road to peace and happiness one form at a time
Tai chi is a
journey, a wonderful learning experience. I remember coming to ...
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Posted by Fiona Anderson..
February 16, 2014
So many things happen in life that are annoying, but to live a stress-free life, you have to learn how to "leave it behind at the river".
The saying being from the story of the 2 monks crossing a river. One carried a lady from one side to the other. A way down the road, the other monk asked the first one why he did that, when they weren't even supposed to talk to ladies. The first monk said he'd left her behind at the river, where the second monk was still carrying her.
Anyway, today my knees...
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Posted by Fiona Anderson..
