ITQF Spring Seminar…
So having launched the International Taiji & Qigong Federation (www.ITQF.com) as a member organisation the focus in March shifted to providing benefits and activities for federation members.
The ITQF is about creating opportunities for members to experience Taiji and Qigong outside their own local experience and for leading Masters and experienced instructors to share and showcase their knowledge to a wider audience.
The Spring Seminar was scheduled for the first weekend in March and being an inaugural event was designed to provide a breadth of learning opportunities for students. Not everyone attended on the day, but by using Zoom students had the option to attend online. It’s great that teachers (nowadays) are used to teaching both online and face to face. But zoom also enables practice to be recorded, giving students the benefit of revisiting lessons and revising their experience afterwards. This reflects a key concern by the ITQF that it’s members can see the benefits of being part of something bigger.
It was decided to follow a modular agenda with the focus on providing a breath of opportunity to try different things. It was helpful that the location permitted two separate halls for practice, with a separate dining room for breaks.
Both Taiji and Qigong work streams were equally represented. The Taiji stream offered the chance to experience weapons forms (Chen Spear and Staff, and Wu sabre) and for hand form enthusiasts the chance to experience Chen Silk reeling and the Two Man Sparring Set.
The Qigong stream saw Faye Li Yip lead and demonstrate two modules covering two traditional sets, the Yi Jin Jing and Ba Duan Jin, and from Sue Woodd the opportunity to learna abut and practice Body Clock Qigong reflecting the body’s circadian rhythms. The day ended with an excellent introduction from Pete Hornby to Chen Silk reeling and Peng, Lu, Ji and An.
Whilst a modular format facilitates variety, a limit of 60 minutes meant that a full exposition of each topic was clearly not feasible. However, it was impressive how each teacher adapted to the time constraint.
When leading a session on the Yi Jin Jing that conventionally practises a twelve step routine, Faye Li Yip chose to combine the initial loosening exercises with a deep-dive into two of the twelve exercises - ‘Nine Ghosts draw their Sabres’ and ‘Tiger leaps at its Prey’. In taking this approach, students were shown the full range of movement required to correctly practise qigong.
Sitting in between Faye’s two traditional sets, Sue Woodd demonstrated her Body Clock Qigong method. Earlier in that week, Sue had been the first presenter on the ITQF’s Speaker Event programme introducing this very topic. It was not surprising therefore, that there was strong interest, following the ‘talk,’ to experience the practice. Some of the strongest feedback after the event was from participants ‘impressed’ that the practice lived up to expectations following the presentation.
In Hall B students could experience the Chen Pear Blossom Spear and White Ape Staff. David Hackett took the students through some basic movements first involving ‘Twirling Rotation’ to give them a feel of how to operate the Spear/Staff. Once the students were able to manage this type of movement, we progressed onto the form. The students were taught to perform moves up to ‘Sweeping Pierce’ and ‘Side Block’.
As we live our busy lives, it is often difficult to experience the variety of forms available, and so one of the great benefits of a seminar approach is to enable these skills to be taught.
Before and after lunch David with the help of his Advanced student Duncan, took students through parts 1 and 2 of the ‘Two Man Sparring Set’. As time allowed we also managed to go through Ta Lu – Right and Left side individually, plus performing the movements working in pairs.
The last session was taken by Master Gary Wragg introducing the ‘Wu style’ Sabre. Gary took us all through some of the basic Wu style Sabre movements including applications. This was an extremely fascinating and enjoyable session.
If anything was learned from the day it was that this will be the first of many. Thoughts are already turning to a follow up event in the autumn. The organisers have pro-actively been seeking feedback around the length of each activity, whether breadth of activity was better than a more in-depth view, and from an international perspective whether the timing of the event could be flexed to meet a US East Coast / Mid-West audience.
In the final analysis, it is for members to express their preferences, so if you have any thoughts why not let us know? Events@ITQF.com
If you want to learn Tai Chi and live in Pinner, Northwood, Ruislip, Eastcote or Rickmansworth areas check out the ‘Classes’ page or search Tai Chi Near Me.