The Dragon's Head Blog: The Green Dragon Dances … and Speaks

As the doors of the practice hall opened the warm wind wafted in giving new life to the space. The tai chi practitioners filtered in a few at a time on this lovely spring day. I was about to come alive again! I am the twenty-legged green dragon resident at the International Taoist Tai Chi Centre near Orangeville Ontario.  I am not the biggest dragon, but I have a lot of spirit … even more so when enlivened by humans. Today about two dozen of them are practicing for upcoming events, including International Awareness Day. After they were given some initial instruction I was carefully taken outdoors where they learned how to do spirals, waves and basic walking, though sometimes they were running to keep me looking good. My favourite is the spiral where my body is collapsed into a tight circle while my head and tail bob up and down in the middle. Lots of my legs (humans) loved taking me into the wave maneuver where they undulate each of my vertebrae one at a time from my head right through to my tail.  It is so exciting to watch as the onlookers attested to.

I feel so honoured to have my humans bring me to life and I know that they are honoured to be working with me. It takes some work, particularly on a windy day like this one was, but it is so worth it. We were hoping for more people to turn up, so another contingent could spell off participants as required. We want to get a lot more people out the next time. Everyone had oddles of fun and we all met some new tai chi dragon friends. We hope you will come out and join us. If you don’t want to work as one of my many legs you can come for the fun, to hand out flyers or to wave banners in the parades … or just come to cheer us on. Our next practice is on Sunday June 11. Thanks for dropping by to read this and we will see you soon. I will be lonely until the next time.

  — The Green Dragon of Orangeville