A day in the life...
Posted by Fiona Anderson. on Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Sometimes I think how lucky I am - I get to do what I love and introduce other people to it too:
Today I had a nice lazy lie-in (after 30 years of getting up at 6 am, I really enjoy a later start!), followed by meandering my way to my first group of the day - a lunchtime session with people who like to do the single form exercises, over and over, one after another. This class helps people get a feel for each form and relax by just following and copying. Relaxation is the number one thing to take away from tai chi!
Then right across to the other side of London, to Bayswater Gardens, for a nice packed lunch by the fountains, followed by a spot of my own personal practise in the lovely park - built by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria. The fountains are quite something to look at and London is very lucky to be blessed with lots of parks, large and small, all over the place.
After that - ice cream! And in an Italian gelateria, mmmm! While I have a healthy diet, I also believe that having treats is essential too. If you're fanatically healthy (or fanatically anything), you can't be relaxing. So I had apple sorbet and tiramisu flavours. The tiramisu ice cream was quite ordinary, but the apple sorbet was to die for, yum!
Finishing the day with a group who are learning their way through the form sequence - they've started on the first 14 (the video for this is elsewhere on this site) and are enjoying it. Actually they're making very good progress, but I try not to tell people about where they are progress-wise, as it's much more important that people enjoy whatever they're doing as the *process* of learning, rather than worry about where they are progressing to. Relaxation comes with not worrying about where you are, but instead with enjoying doing whatever you're doing.
Anyway, after that it was home time, reading my murder mystery book on the train - very relaxing!
Today I had a nice lazy lie-in (after 30 years of getting up at 6 am, I really enjoy a later start!), followed by meandering my way to my first group of the day - a lunchtime session with people who like to do the single form exercises, over and over, one after another. This class helps people get a feel for each form and relax by just following and copying. Relaxation is the number one thing to take away from tai chi!
Then right across to the other side of London, to Bayswater Gardens, for a nice packed lunch by the fountains, followed by a spot of my own personal practise in the lovely park - built by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria. The fountains are quite something to look at and London is very lucky to be blessed with lots of parks, large and small, all over the place.
After that - ice cream! And in an Italian gelateria, mmmm! While I have a healthy diet, I also believe that having treats is essential too. If you're fanatically healthy (or fanatically anything), you can't be relaxing. So I had apple sorbet and tiramisu flavours. The tiramisu ice cream was quite ordinary, but the apple sorbet was to die for, yum!
Finishing the day with a group who are learning their way through the form sequence - they've started on the first 14 (the video for this is elsewhere on this site) and are enjoying it. Actually they're making very good progress, but I try not to tell people about where they are progress-wise, as it's much more important that people enjoy whatever they're doing as the *process* of learning, rather than worry about where they are progressing to. Relaxation comes with not worrying about where you are, but instead with enjoying doing whatever you're doing.
Anyway, after that it was home time, reading my murder mystery book on the train - very relaxing!
