Tai Chi for Beginners - Weds 11 April - Inspire Dance Studio

Pretty much everyone who's come along to my Chi Kung Plus classes has been more interested in learning Tai Chi, so that's how I'm going to focus them now.
NEXT CLASS: Wednesday 11 April at Inspire Dance Studio, 7pm to 8pm.
I was looking for good images to use for posters and flyers, and some brilliant cat photos came up on Facebook. It's interesting that a lot of Tai Chi and other martial art movements come from the observation of animals: the snake fighting the crane, the "animal frolics", and so on.

Cat doing Tai Chi? Brilliant photos of cats playing by Hisakata Hiroyuki.

These classes are for complete beginners, and all ages and fitness levels. I've split the form I learned up into easy-to-learn chunks so that you will have something to practise straightaway. Though this makes it as simple as possible, and it's intended to be fun, there are many immediate benefits from learning Tai Chi: improved balance, suppleness, relaxation, better energy and much more. It might have its roots many hundreds of years ago in the mountains of China but Tai Chi is as relevant, or maybe even more so, than ever in a crazy, stressful world.

First Perth Chi Kung Plus Class

Thanks for your company everyone who came to the first class here in Perth last night, what a great bunch you are! Next class is in two weeks time, the 21st March, see you then. Inspire is a very friendly place and brilliant for teaching with its mirror wall, which makes it possible to demonstrate a move and watch people at the same time.
As well stretching and the personal and interpersonal energy work I had planned, I slipped in the Short Short Tai Chi form which I developed while I was helping Steve Jones to run and teach his Sector39 Permaculture courses back down in Shropshire.

Birth of the Short Short Form in Treflach Farmyard

Steve is really an afternoon-evening person whereas I'm more of a morning one, so it worked out well to fit in some Tai Chi before classes started, and the students found it really helpful. The courses were just two weeks long so there wasn't time to teach a full form - I learned the Cheng Man Ching Sort Form, which even though "short" still takes weeks and weeks to learn. My Short Short Form is a condensed version of it which you can pick up quite quickly but still has a lot of the basic elements and movements. You would find it a good start if you ever went on to learn a full form but will still give lots of benefits just on its own.

Movement in Stillness

One of the first things we learn in CranioSacral Therapy is Stillpoint Induction, bringing about a temporary pause in the craniosacral rhythm through light touch and focused intention.

Into the stillness,"Three Worlds", by Escher

It's a therapeutic moment for the release of restriction and readjustment, and patients find it very relaxing.

Evolving Cosciousness - the Quadrune Brain

The idea of the Triune Brain, ie that our human brains are an enfoldment over mammal brains which are in turn an enfoldment over reptile brains, can be really helpful in explaining how people's behaviour can revert to something less than human, for example, when we feel threatened, scared, get drunk or if someone threatens someone close to us.

Thinking about how whales and dolphins are in a way more evolved than humans in that they have returned to the sea, maybe there's a Quadrune Consciousness we're already tapping into

Integrated Healthcare

All of us complementary therapists working here at Tay Medispa in Perth, Scotland, have been talking a lot about integrated healthcare - how to work even better together as a team at our clinic, and about how to link up with the other complementary therapists and clinics in and around Perth. And above all, how to get better communication going with all the people working here in the NHS, (for readers outside the UK, the NHS is our wonderful welfare state national health service), so that people know much more about what health support is available, how each service can help and when the various different treatments are most appropriate.

MUTUAL SUPPORT - by working together, the individual members of the reciprocating roof enable the whole structure to cover a very wide space with no central supporting post

We seem to be in a strange situation at the moment, having a mostly over stretched NHS and mostly under utilised complementary sector. I heard recently of people waiting two years for operations in this country - I'm sure that at least some of those people could be treated successfully with complementary therapy, gentler on all systems and available immediately. I offer a free initial 30 minute consultation, a great opportunity to find out more about CranioSacral Therapy and whether it might help you, to see the clinic and to find out about all the other treatments available at Medispa.
So I guess I'm going to carry on meeting up with people, opening the channels, giving demos and talks and generally explaining what we do.
TOPICS COMING SOON: A few tales from my own experiences of giving and receiving healthcare, NHS and complementary, the best and the worst.

!! NEW !! - Chi Kung PLUS - Classes and Tuiition

I developed Chi Kung Plus through showing clients exercises, to help them deal better with stress and as a general health boost. Chi Kung Plus is easy to learn, calming and fun, and highly effective. The exercises combine traditional Chi Kung with my complementary therapy experience, especially of CranioSacral Therapy. More here: Chi Kung Plus.

I'm available for small classes of two or three people and individual tuition here in Perth at Tay Medispa and currently sorting out a venue for larger classes.The studios at Inspire look great, one of them has a mirrored wall which is really handy for teaching, and there's a good friendly atmosphere there.
Chi Kung Plus is great for starting the day on courses or for a break in a stressful working day - please get in touch to talk about holding a class in your course programme or at your workplace.
email: ianecowatt@hotmail.com
mobile: 07450 332 430

ENDLESS BEGINNINGS

It's brilliant to be working hands-on with patients again here at Tay Medispa in Perth, Scotland. Recent experiences have made me think about how to help people at an ever deeper level, with hands-on and remote patients, individually and in groups.

The tides of life.

ENDLESS BEGINNINGS
The subtle rhythms we work with in CranioSacral Therapy, certainly in the Upledger way I'm familiar with, are generally quite short cycles of seconds or minutes. I'm also aware of longer rhythms, the "tides"...