I recently attended my professional association conference in Leeds and on the Sunday morning after breakfast instead of offering some more workshops to attend the organisers arranged three activity classes and I chose Tai Chi. It was a cool and rather blustery day and around thirty other like minded souls gathered in the lovely grounds of Leeds Trinity Uni on the grass under some trees.
We formed a circle and I noticed some people were barefoot so I decided to give it a go and this was the start of a rather special experience. I could sense the cold damp grass, the undulations in the ground and once I started to take in the space & other people around me I felt a greater connection with the world around me. We then spend over an hour doing gentle movement exercises paying attention to the contact with the ground, our centre or dantian and the space above the crown of our head. As we were all Alexander Teachers used to mind body practices we all started to flow in our movement and you could see the freedom that we were all experiencing through the joy and smiling expressions.
Towards the end of the session we did a kind of bird flapping or wafting with our arms and hands. Initially we were all probably a bit out of sinc with each other then gradually we seemed to become connected with each other somehow and everyone was moving with synchronicity it was a really special moment that I won't forget.
