Push Hands and Partner Work Group

 

Time: Ongoing – Fridays from 9:30 – 11:00
Class Location: First Parish Sudbury, 327 Concord Rd, Sudbury, MA 01776.
We meet either outdoors around back or downstairs in the Parish Hall.
To Register: Contact Jon. Size of group will be limited to 12 people.
Cost: Free
Experience Level: This is open to all levels. Some experience with the solo form is helpful, but not required.

Covid Information: Please participate only if you are vaccinated. Please do not attend if you have any symptoms of any illness, no matter how minor. Since we will be in close physical contact with one another please make choices on the cautious side.

About The Class
Participants in this Group will use partner exercises and push hands drills to explore and build various T’ai Chi related skills that cannot be developed using just the solo form. Together, we will work on developing various “Jings” (expressions of energy) such as “Peng” (expanding) and “Lu” (letting go) and will explore other concepts such as “Ting” (listening) and “Song” (relaxing). We will use a variety of structured partner exercises as well as push hands drills and free-form push hands to build our flow and sensitivity.

The emphasis with all of this will be on building our awareness and our ability to work with energy. (The emphasis will not be on developing our fighting skills.) The drills are all safe and fairly low key.

My vision for this group is that we will all be practicing these concepts and drills with each other, (me included) and will switch off partners periodically. While my role will most likely be to lead or guide the group, my hope is that as we proceed, each participant will take responsibility for the exploration of their own experiences. In other words, while I can lay out the basic structures of the exercises, it will be up to you the participants to own, learn from and adapt the deeper experiences. You will need to find what does and doesn’t work for you and will need to find ways to adapt experiences so that it does work for you.

As time goes on I will add some resources to this page (or set up a separate resource page). In the meantime, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me.