Saturday 25 September 2021

Remembering my first lesson

September 1981 - my first tai chi lesson was in Manchester. The teacher was Danny Connor, a well known martial artist who had a martial arts shop called Oriental World in Swan Street.

He taught the now popular 24 step form. In that first lesson we also did some standing in the classic Hold the Ball posture with the arms rounded in front of your chest. We stood with or eyes closed. I felt energy very strongly and entered into a quiet state. 

I thought we had only been standing for a minute or so when I heard the instruction to open the eyes and relax. Turned out everyone else had heard the instruction the first time except me and Danny stood in front of me waving his hands to no avail. A fellow student told me had I had been standing for 5 minutes. We had a laugh about it.

Anyway from that moment on I was hooked on Tai Chi. 

Do you remember your first lesson?




Friday 10 September 2021

Old Photos

A bit of history! 

These are old photos from a Republic of China Tai Chi Handbook,

Top left is a photo of Dr. Chi Chiang Tao who was my teacher's instructor.  In the other photo the bottom two are of Dr. Chi practicing  San Shou.