My First International Taoist Tai Chi Workshop

DENVER, CO

The Taoist Tai Chi Society of which I am a member is an international organization founded and headquartered in Toronto, Canada.  Throughout the year there are numerous opportunities to improve our Tai Chi by attending weekend Workshops or Intensives.  Typically led by a visiting instructor, they involve A LOT of Tai Chi practice.  The annual International Workshop in Denver is one of the bigger-deal events, and this year was led by the senior instructor of the Society, Tony Kwan.  

One of the many nice things about the Society is how supportive members are of each other.  It is a normal practice that visiting members are picked up and dropped off at the airport, transported wherever they need to be, and if requested, billeted at a member's home.  I chose both transportation and billeting.

Once again I flew without incident, and was met by Maria at the Denver airport.  DIA is about an hour east of Denver proper, and Maria picked up three of us who arrived at approximately the same time.   The other two wanted to go directly to the Tai Chi center, but it being my first visit to Denver, I readily agreed to Maria's offer of a short sight-seeing tour of the area.

Like Flagstaff, Denver had received late and bountiful rains this spring.  Maria and other members who are residents of Denver commented on how unusually green it was.

Our first stop was at the Red Rocks State Park and Amphitheater, a natural outdoor setting for concerts.  The band Widespread Panic was playing that night, so we couldn't get into the amphitheater itself.  The amphitheater is tucked in on the right.

This is some of the surrounding area.  Very Sedona-like.

Our drive continued on a winding highway with great scenery, 

including this overview of the Golden's claim to fame.

 With 350 members, the local club can support a Society-owned building located in Denver's revitalized downtown.  They hold a full slate of classes and workshops, community support events, and members-only events.  The renovated building includes a small and busy commercial grade kitchen and spotless restrooms decorated with this yin-yang quilt.

  Each week a dinner is held for members to socialize.  Members who are restaurant grade chefs were busy the whole weekend preparing food for the workshop.  This is the interior of the building. 

The Society offers what they call a Health Recovery component, which is classes for anyone with any challenges.  The woman sitting above did Tai Chi in her chair the whole weekend.

Friday night we enjoyed the first of our delicious meals, then practiced the 108-move set twice. I was   then transported by one generous member to another generous member's home for billeting.

Our hostess Teri is in the middle with her home in the background.  Fellow workshop attendees Jane and Bryson are standing beside her. 

The morning session Saturday started at 10:00.  We were under the direction of the Society's senior instructor, Tony Kwan.  Tony is about 70, small, and has terrific Confucius-style eyebrows that come out over his eyes.  He has quite a bit of English, but Chinese is his first language and he travels to workshops with an interpreter.   We practiced steadily, with one short break, for about 3 hours.  Tony would demonstrate we were to work on, then we separated into small groups led by advanced instructors.  We broke for a fabulous lunch, which was organized into set-up (tables & chairs),
 serving, take-down and doing dishes.  Many hands made short work.  Our afternoon session followed the structure of the morning.  The beauty of this type of training is that we worked on only a few moves with very high repetitions in small groups.  That gave us time to do the given move enough times to really get a feel for it, plus the instructors were able to offer suggestions and corrections more than once to each of us.  I found it highly effective.  During the small group practice Tony would choose someone to work with (never me, thank goodness!).  Since he was correcting physical form and hands-on is problematic, he use a dowel about 15" long with a ball on the end for him to hold.  He then -very gently and minutely-touched arms, hands, knees, etc. until the person's form was as close to perfect as it was going to get that day.  Yep, he made them SWEAT!  As the day progressed, the rest of us would stop our own practice to watch, both giving us a break and a chance to watch one of the best.

We broke for dinner, then started the evening session.  More and more practice.  We ended at 9:30, and by that time I could hardly stumble out the door, let alone form a sentence!  Teri was chatty and wanted to hear about our day; I shortly had to excuse myself to bed.

The Society has roots in Chinese philosophical/religious beliefs, and the Denver center included this altar set up to show respect to historical leaders of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism.

In keeping with my "try everything" mindset, Sunday morning before the workshop started, I joined a group who participated in Chanting, which consisted of about a 30 minute recitation of chants in Chinese.  Booklets with phonetic pronunciation but no translation were provided.

Before the Sunday morning session began, we took photos.  Arizona was well represented with this large contingent from Flagstaff and Phoenix. 

The Sunday morning session began at 10:00 and we took up where we had left off the night before.  I was glad to see I wasn't the only one feeling the effects of the day before, as many people showed evidence of their fatigue.  I practiced two more hours, missing the afternoon session to be able to catch my flight home on time.  Yes, another generous member transported me back to DIA.

I really enjoyed this workshop.  I have found the intensity has both improved my practice and allowed me to be able to remember much of what I practiced.  Will do it again?  You bet!

"I hear and I forget.  I see and I remember.  I do and I understand."

 ------Confucius