steven yi :: music

This past weekend I was once again able to attend one of Lenzie’s workshops. The two days were–as always–filled with a lot of information and great experiences.  Lenzie often talks about how we get "little pieces of the puzzle" from all the experiences we have in Tai Chi, from our practice, workshops, camps, and lessons. The pieces of the puzzle at first might not make much sense but that we note it and file it away, and that later the pieces start to link up and we start to get an understanding of all of those gems.  Certainly after this workshop I had a strong experience of this as it seemed that a few pieces of the puzzle in regards to articulation of the waist and sinking started to come together. 

It was also great to see the members of the school there, both those whom we regularly see and those from out of town we get to see on occasions like this.  It was also nice to meet new people as well as seeing other guests (it was particularly nice seeing Veera from Utah).  It’s always great to get together with good people to learn and experience Tai Chi and to enjoy community and friendship.

This past weekend I had the great fortune to attend a workshop with Ben Lo in Logan, Utah. Like the previous workshop I was fortunate to attend, the work as tough as it was inspiring.  One of the biggest things I took away from the workshop was that one can work just as hard at home as there at the workshop: “I hope you work like this when you practice at home” he said, and really one can work at home with as much focus and intensity as one can at a workshop.  This is certainly one lesson I hope to keep in mind in my practice here on out.

There were many lessons learned from Master Lo’s teaching as well as all the push hands experience with the other attendees and enjoyable conversations. Being my first time to Utah, I was very impressed by how genuinely kind everyone was, and was grateful for the hospitality.  Inspired, I hope to take the the lessons forward and will be looking forward to being able to see these people again, either here in California, at other workshops, or hopefully again in Utah!

This year was our teacher’s 10th Tai Chi camp at Walker Creek Ranch, as well as Lisa and my 6th camp that we attended with our teacher.  The camp was a couple weeks ago from Sunday through Friday, June 22-27th, though I’ve only managed to find time to write about it now. 

Every camp has been an incredible experience and always a very special week of great fellowship, learning, inspiration, and rejuvenation. This year’s camp had all of these qualities, but also was a very special one for us as we got engaged at the ranch just before camp started! The love and support we received from our fellow tai chi players was just phenomenal and something I will always look back with great appreciation.

The tai chi practice and learning itself was of course of great as usual.  This year’s camp, like last year’s, was not one of the more physical camps, but again filled with a great deal of information.  There were many times where a single sentence made a connection as a gem of information, or something that was described briefly illuminated a much larger concept that was until then hazy.  The work we did on these concepts really did help to make progress in understanding them, especially all of the work and discussion on waist development. 

Coming away from camp, there are some very clear things I will be focusing my attention on, and plenty of notes that I will go through to see what other gems of information I had missed initially. It was great too to be back in class yesterday and to have a nice medium intensity practice.  It is a really great fortune that after camp we who live in the Bay Area can simply continue our practice with Lenzie in our weekly classes. I will be looking forward to taking what was learned at camp and continuing to work on these ideas during our classes at the school.

This past weekend I had the great fortune to attend a workshop with Ben Lo up in Fairfax.  While the experience was difficult and very challenging, it was also incredibly inspiring and provided a very high set of standards to push towards. There were so many gems of wisdom given by Ben that were so simple yet so deeply profound.  I will be studying my notes for some time to try to really take that information and to truly learn and embody it.

Beyond just the teaching, I think there was a lot to take in and absorb about Ben Lo the human being.  His humor and character were really amazing to be around and I felt there was much to learn from and emulate.

The whole workshop was really inspiring on many levels, and I left the weekend really motivated and excited for my tai-chi practice, music, and life in general.  I’m grateful for the experience and will value it for a long time to come.

The past three days have been as enjoyable and as enlightening as all of the past workshops I’ve attended with Lenzie. With each workshop I only grow more and more appreciative of the opportunities I have to learn from Lenzie and to be with such wonderful groups of people to learn tai chi together with.  I am still sorting through the experiences and thoughts from this workshop and will enjoy reviewing my notes tomorrow to gather up all that has happened. 

One thing I do want to note is how much I enjoy the people associated with the school.  It’s great to see all of the people we see regularly, and it’s a special treat to get to see those from out of town whom we’ve had connections with in the past.  Training with the class, I found myself genuinely and completely happy… ^_^