Tai Chi Beginners Exercise – Energy Work – Mindfulness – Meditation
Starting Tuesday 17 September 2024
Bourton on the Water 10.30 – 11.30 am. Broadway 6.30 – 7.30 pm
Beginners are also welcome at Milton under Wychwood (Monday mornings) and Evesham U3A (Wednesday mornings)
Please message via text or using the Contact page to request more details or book your place.
Tai Chi in the Garden continues – Barton on the Heath – Private Lessons for beginners or refine your skills – Laojia, Pear Blossom Spear, Straight Sword, Push hands.
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Welcome
At Cotswold Tai Chi, Valerie Ward helps us to maintain and improve our health and well being in both body and mind. The ancient Chinese systems of Qigong (pronounced – chi gung) and Chen Style Tai Chi achieve this, not through pounding and straining, but through the cultivation of relaxation and gently focused attention.
The classes cater to a wide range of physical abilities and are suitable for beginners as well as more experienced practitioners. Everyone works at their own level but beginners can expect to progress more quickly when there are more experienced people in the group.
Tai chi is about mindfully learning how to move, to integrate the whole body as one unit. This produces improvements to balance, coordination, flexibility, strength and mental well being. It promotes harmony for body, mind and spirit.
The beginners’ sessions include gentle ‘warm-up’ exercises, then some breath work or qi gong, finishing with tai chi fundamentals, all of which are easy to follow. Once you are comfortable with this, you may like to stay for the later part of the session, where we cover a tai chi ‘Form’, a sequence of movements. This is a little more complicated for new students, but after a few weeks the movements will become more familiar. Small sections are practiced each week so the whole Form gradually comes together. Learning the sequences should be a fun and interesting challenge but it is not the most important aspect of the practice.
Cotswold Tai Chi is affiliated to the Three Counties Chen Taijiquan Association headed by Master Chen Yingjun.
Here is a ‘taster’ of the Silk Reeling technique and The 19 Form from Chen Yingjun’s father, Grandmaster Chen Xiaowang. Happy practice.