The Dragon's Head Blog
Heart to Heart
When I started my Taoist Tai Chi® practice in 1998, I was just like every other beginner. I was eager to learn this shiny new thing. I knew nothing. With every class I attended, my confidence grew. Before I knew it, I was doing the whole set with everyone else. When the next beginner class started, I […]
Aging with my Taoist Tai Chi® practice
I believe that my Taoist Tai Chi® practice has helped to hold off the brittleness of aging. I think that it has restored my sense of balance that was beginning to decline some, and improved my peripheral vision. The awareness of others around me doing the same moves enhances the energy field. I feel like […]
A Long Life with Parkinson’s Disease
“My name is Assunta and I’ve had Parkinson’s disease for almost 40 years. I have been practicing Taoist Tai Chi® arts for almost as long. I knew after my first class that the Taoist Tai Chi® arts were helping me. I first became stronger emotionally and then physically. Everything improved and I was better able to tolerate medications. I […]
What have the Taoist Tai Chi® arts meant to me in the last year?
The news of the Pandemic, like it did for most people, came to me like a bucket of cold water. I am a very stressed and worried person and since my daughters are living in a country where the number of infections was overwhelming from the beginning, I was filled with anguish and concern. Faced […]
We Are All Our Own Instructors
When it was announced a year ago that we would be canceling Taoist Tai Chi® classes for the indefinite future I assumed I would continue to practice the 3 or 4 times a week I had been practicing when I went to classes. But where would the instruction come from? I had never thought about […]
Feeling more connected
Lockdown arrived so no classes, all usual routine was gone. I felt all at sea. Practicing sets daily as usual, but I found that by the end of a set I had tears streaming down my face, even though I did feel calm. It was troubling. What to do? I decided to stop the sets […]
From grief to joy in a moment
I have found this 3rd lockdown in England very difficult and felt bowed down with grief for our son who died 18 months ago. It’s been a struggle to do my daily practice. However, I have forced myself to join the chanting on Saturdays and Mondays to bring some structure into my life. During the last […]
From the heart
I have come to realize more that the core of our learning path can be traced back to the heart. Often I know things but sometimes I can feel it. [...]
Chanting together
Four meetings on Zoom have become a permanent part of my weekly schedule. When I announce at home that it is time to meet, my daughter asks me: are you singing today? On Wednesday and Saturday I say – yes, why are you asking? She replies –because I would like to be with you. Therefore, […]
What does Chanting give me?
Before starting a chanting session, a feeling of stillness and calm invades me. This feeling of tranquility, but at the same time of strength, remains afterwards. I usually practice on my knees. This position helps me release my hips (in the sitting position is where I get the most pain from trochanteritis) and I have […]
Already eleven months and always present!
Confined but not suffocated or isolated! Our instructors have never stopped repeating to us, without ever getting tired: ”Do some foundation movements, a little, every day…” At first, my practise was very limited, often in the early morning. I found it easy to start but harder to continue. There is always some distraction ready to […]
Changing habits
56 years ago my mother passed away. I was 10. Since then I have lived a pretty wreckless life. Smoking has been one of my coping mechanisms for the last 40 years until 6 years ago, when Taoist Tai Chi gave me the strength to stop. I ordered a plaque for my mother, for All […]
Pain is out!
During the latest lockdown, I hardly found time to practice. Indeed, I was having twice my normal amount of work, in addition to the daily household chores (including looking after 4 kids). My body paid for it: I felt more stressed and tensed and recently got a block in my upper back. I called the […]
The best out of the worst
During the first months of self-practice, I was practicing very high Don-Yus. This allowed me to relax a lot the cervical and lumbar area. By spending so many hours working in front of the computer, they were parts of the body very vulnerable to pain. I managed to incorporate the 50 Don-Yus into my daily […]
Costa Rica
I would like to share my experience in these times, and something that was said at some point in the meetings on Saturdays comes to my mind: ”In difficult times opportunities arise …”. For me it has been a great opportunity to learn more about the Fung Loy Kok Institute of Taoism. The teachings […]
The right course
We’ve recently discussed one of the guidelines from Fung Loy Kok directors at our ZOOM meeting with Polish members. It was about having a notebook to make notes regarding our individual practice and the progress we make and changes we can observe while being on the Taoist Tai Chi® training path. Włodek, a member from […]
Take responsibility
Thanks to regular zoom meetings with the leaders of our organisation, I’ve come to realise several challenges in these difficult times when restrictions change our ordinary lives. One of the key messages for me is to take responsibility for yourself, for your training. It means trusting yourself, trusting instructions we have received and still receive […]
Opportunities through Adversity
The adversity of this time of pandemic has given me the opportunity to realize the importance of being conscious and consistent, both in the practice of tai chi, as in the zoom and chanting sessions. Sharing all this gives way to words and emotions, such as: consistency, patience, awareness, connection, attention, observation, letting go and […]
Finding A New Grace
Everyone probably has lockdown stories to tell: here is mine. Even after years of Tai Chi, I still sometimes wondered if I could get through a set without clues from my fellow practitioners, but was determined to try and do a set each day during lockdown. I had fallen in love with Tai Chi from […]
Making The Pain Go Away
”I just wanted to tell you about something that’s happened since Lockdown. I’ve been diagnosed with osteoarthritis in both hips, and was getting quite a bit of hip pain until I finally got a diagnosis. Then I remembered something that we had been told at CIT week in Orangeville, back in 2009, about how dan-yus […]
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