Lee style T'ai Chi classes in West Cornwall
Rachel has opened a new Tai Chi class in St Ives at
St John’s in the fields church, Parc an Stamps, Halestown, Saint Ives TR26 2FB
Please note this term’s classes will be on Tuesday evenings 7:30-9pm from Tuesday 18th January 2022.
The class is £10 per week, discounts are available if you book 4 or 8 weeks.
The class includes free access to daily Zoom lessons and 360° Youtube videos
Beginners are welcome
We are offering Free of charge online Tai Chi lessons every day with Zoom.
There are three classes a day, one at 10:00 and another at 15:00 and one at 19:00 (UTC+1). If you are interested in joining please register on our Association’s website. The classes are free of charge, but if you wish to make a donation we recommend £8 for one week, £28 for four weeks, or £48 for eight weeks. You can attend once a week, every day, or as often as you like, each class lasts for an hour. Please sign in a few minutes before the class starts if you want to ask any questions or get your video and audio set up.
The Tai Chi Easter Course is open to everyone from beginner level to advanced students and is suitable for both men and women of all ages. Over the week we will be going into the exercises we do in the evening classes in more depth and there will also be plenty of experienced students from our clubs around the country to work with.
A typical day starts with warming up exercises followed by Tao Yin or deep breathing. This activates the Dantian or lower cauldron where our internal energy is stored. We then do a partner exercise which helps the energy to travel along the spine and circulate throughout the entire body. The morning is usually reserved for the Tiaowu or Tai Chi dance form which is a flowing sequence of movements. We call this a more Yang form because it involves more movement including jumping and sweeping down close to the ground. We start with very simple movements then as your ability increases you progress to the more advanced sequences.
We have a break in the morning for tea and then move on to partner exercises. We break for lunch from 1-2pm. In the afternoon we do some Qigong which helkps to ipen up the energy channels and gives you a boost for the afternoon session. We will be doing some more partner work including Yifu Shou (sticky hands) and various other exercises designed to help us understand the differences between physical and energetic types of exercises.
At the end of the class we concentrate on the Tai Chi form which is the oldest form of Tai Chi exercise, it helps to improve your concentration and focus.
An ITN film crew came to our Summer Course in Cornwall this year to film us for an ITN Tonight documentary on pain relief. You can see the Tai Chi in the last five minutes of the programme.
We went down to Sennen Cove first thing in the morning to do some T’ai Chi and warming up exercises for the course and they interviewed some of our students.
The documentary is about opioids which are prescription drugs given out by doctors to help people with long term pain. Unfortunately although these are very good in the short term, but when they are used for longer periods they become less effective and can lead to addiction and a variety of unpleasant symptoms. However some people have found that more natural methods can be effective to help people manage their pain and T’ai Chi is one of these methods. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine long term pain can be caused by obstructions in the energy meridians which choke the flow of Chi or life force. T’ai Chi exercises can really help to improve the flow of Chi and so people feel less pain. T’ai Chi also helps the body and mind to regenerate more quickly and so in the long term the amount of pain suffered is reduced and so overall less side effects are experienced.
If you are interested in looking at some alternative approach to pain relief then have a look at our Association’s main website and see if there is a class or course near you.
Chee Soo talking about the benefits of Tai Chi on the radio in 1977.
Chee Soo: It’s “T’ai Chi Ch’uan” is the Mandarin, in Cantonese they call it “Tai Ki Kun”, but it’s no longer tweeted as…
Posted by Taoist Cultural Arts Association on Sunday, 5 July 2015
A rare interview from BBC One’s Nationwide in 1973 of Chee Soo demonstrating Feng Shou soft style kung fu.
Chee Soo interviewed by Bob Wellings.
Some T’ai Chi students and teachers from our classes around the country talking about their experiences.
Self defence training at the Feng Shou kung fu Summer Course in St Just August 2011
Our Tai Chi Elements online training project means you can practice at home and still benefit from the support of your teacher and stay in contact with other students from around the world.
This video demonstrates the 3d engine alongside the in-game screen which allows a user to upload a video of their training and compare it with the motion-captured 3d models.
Rachel Simpson teaching beginners the first few sequences of the T’ai Chi form at St Just sports centre this summer. Rachel teaches evening classes in Penzance and Hayle.
Some T’ai Chi dance on Gwynver beach.
