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3 Ways To Practice Tai Chi

Steve Tai Chi Pose

3 Ways To Practice Tai Chi

Monk Style
Always begin with Monk style… Neigong, Qigong, the Yang Chen Fu form and basic push hands drills. Practice like a monk in the temple gardens, with no ‘martial’ applications in mind, get rid of violence, aggression, fear and anger by clearing your mind, making it aware, focused, sensitive, intense and bringing it to a state of peace and stillness. Do this by working on your posture and breathing, this will bring forth these qualities of mind. Be gentle, soft, circular, continuous and let the mind be at ease. Until you can practice this way, DO NOT MOVE ON as you will not progress.

Warrior Style
Now you have the ‘yin’ and have cleared your mind and emotions, have good posture, balance and free movement without excessive tension, you have ‘cleared down’ or ’emptied your cup’ and are ready for the martial fairydust.  The ‘Chong Chuan’ introduces the powerful, focused and intense intention to direct the 13 Dynamics and skills such as the ‘fa geng’ (jing) and work with an opponent in mind. Learn the weapons forms and their proper skills and drills so you understand the strategies and skills of using that particular weapon. We use broadsword, double edge sword and spear. Push hands drills now also become dynamic, to include applications of the techniques, ideas and principles in the form and can also become enthusiastic ‘play’. Wall training also helps with combative training and adrenaline release.

Sick Man Style
Sometimes called ‘Drunken’, is to exaggerate the power sourcing of the moves, utilising the bodycore and spine and taking all positions to the absolute furthest point to ‘fire’ the power. ‘Sick Man’ because it’s using the core in a vomiting way (without actually doing it) to project the power.

I cannot stress the importance of ‘Monk Style’ first to ‘clear down’ ready for ‘Warrior Style’ training and ‘Sick Man Style’ is an additional way of building those essential power skills. Many practitioners never get past the ‘Monk Style’ and many don’t want to, but for those interested in the complete art, ‘Warrior’ and ‘Sick Man’ are essential for vigorous health, self defence and strategies for life.

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Liar, Liar Your Pants Are On Fire

Monkey

Liar, Liar Your Pants Are On Fire

I’m looking for truth;
I hate being manipulated;
When I meditate,
I discover who I am,
And what I really think.

Everything around me is a lie;
Every lie wants to be a part of me;
And take over my soul;
Each one manipulates me;
And tries to determine how I think.

Religion is a lie.
Nationality is lie.
They don’t exist;
They are made up by people;
And yet we are expected to fight to the death over them.

Money is not real;
Only numbers on a spreadsheet;
Yet because of it people starve to death;
Get sick and die;
Are homeless and live in poverty;
Whilst others accumulate everything.

We are expected to buy into everything;
The billionaire one percent,
Tell the millionaire politicians,
To tell us what to think and who to hate;
Are we really that stupid?

The corporate media tell us what to desire;
How we should look,
Who and what to hate;
And try to structure our thinking;
Keep moving, keep desiring;
DON’T STOP AND THINK!!!

The corporate film makers create universes,
Marvel, DC, Star Wars, the more lies the better;
DON’T LOOK AT REALITY!!!
DON’T LOOK AT THE NAKED EMPEROR!!!
THERE IS NO TRUTH!!!
Keep giving us your money…

Liar, liar, your pants are on fire;
Everything is burning;
Everything is impermanent;
We are all one – animate and inanimate;
There IS another way;

All you have to do is to be still;
Apply critical thinking;
See through the lies;
Find your true self;
And live from the inside out.

 

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How Matt Fiddes Tai Chi Happened

For some time I’ve been watching Matt Fiddes. I didn’t know him, had never met him, but still felt offended on his behalf when other people who had also not met and didn’t know him were calling him names and joining in with others like bullies on a school playground. I knew he was quite capable of looking after himself, but felt bound to go to his defence as he had done nothing wrong and broken no laws.

I followed him on social media and looked into his business structure. I found it difficult to run a couple of clubs and an association, so was intrigued to find that he successfully ran a 700 club franchise. Feted as ‘trainer and bodyguard to the stars’ I realised that he couldn’t be an idiot and must have both skill and business acumen. He supported many charities and charitable causes and when he appeared on the TV programme ‘Rich House, Poor House’ he broke the rules and bought the other ‘poor family’ a desperately needed mobility scooter and gave the unemployed father a job in his organisation.  He even met the school ‘bully’ whose actions made him start martial arts and gave him a job as well!

On Instagram you could see he was in the gym every day, often twice a day and training hard, he attended every event in his organisation, meeting everyone, shaking hands, supporting the charitable causes and visiting sick and cancer patients in hospital. He certainly didn’t come across as a bad person!

In his own way he is ‘old school’ – a WTF Taekwondo champion as a youngster he started teaching early and quickly built a good club base, by studying world renowned experts in all areas from business to training he came to the attention of the rich and famous and established a solid franchise structure.

To keep standards he doesn’t grade his own black belts, but gets Master Frank Murphy, graded to black belt by the founder of Taekwondo and International Champion to vet their standards.

He is now very much a family man, married to South African pop singer Monique, he spends a lot of his time with her and their children.

We had spoken occasionally through Facebook Messenger but nothing of any real consequence, when I put my Tai Chi Coaching Programme together and recruited my first batch of martial arts instructors I quickly realised that I had something very special and that it could go really well, that I needed someone who was expert in the areas of business structure and promotion who I could form a long term relationship with – at that point the choice was obvious.

 

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Putting Your Head In Your Anus

Photo on 03-03-2018 at 12.03

Putting Your Head In Your Anus

It’s a catchy, humorous title but has a serious side to it.

When you’re doing seated meditation a good point to focus on is ‘sealing your anus’ with the weight of your head. This ensures that your back is straight and your head is aligned.

When you’re standing, you do the same with the arches of your feet and of course all balanced movement in Tai Chi is dependent on your skill in feeling this alignment and the arches of the feet are the first ‘pump of chi’ in the body.

When standing you can move your head in all directions and feel the effect in the arches of the feet so you can adjust to get it absolutely right – and when seated you can feel it in the same way in the ‘seal’ of the anus.

So you can genuinely say that when you’re meditating you really do have your head in your ass!

 

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Martial Arts Bullies

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It’s common knowledge that I don’t like bullies in the martial arts in life or social media. When people go on about ‘standards’ and ‘McDojo’s” in the arts my first thought is ‘people in glass houses’… They are usually the people who should be putting their own house in order!

We may not like what some people teach, but if they’re not breaking any laws we don’t have the right to bully, slander or libel them. What we do need to do is everything in our power to raise the standards of the arts generally in whatever area we train and teach in and continually encourage others to improve and point to what is good. All the time we point at others in a negative way we only demonstrate our own failings.

If we work together instead of against each other and share our knowledge and systems it can only be for good. Martial Arts have a lot to offer the public, but when they see senior people arguing like children in a school playground and those that teach anti bullying, pointing, laughing and ridiculing others it really puts us all in a bad light.

Let’s stop bullying in the Martial Arts as well as outside.

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Old Man On A Bench

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Old Man On A Bench

Made me jump.
I thought he was a statue;
Just sitting there staring into time;
People reach that age where they become invisible;
Not fitting into social norms….

He was bolt upright.
Neck firmly against his collar;
Back ramrod straight;
Breathing imperceptibly;
No wonder I thought he was made of stone..

I was transfixed.
I wondered what his life had been;
What had he done?
What had bought him to here, now?
What could he teach us?

We used to revere age and experience;
Now we worship youth and stupidity;
Dignity is sadly a thing of the past;
The grey hair is often dyed, the wrinkles botoxed;
Many now ironically wear their arse fat on their lips…

Yet here was discipline;
Stillness, posture and focus;
Experience worn with grace;
Ready to pass away without passing on;
No-one stopping to learn.

Everyone has a story;
Something to teach;
Life’s scars give experience;
The aged have much to give;
But humanity has lost their ears.

Soon there will be a space.
No human statue on the bench;
Experience and knowledge yielded to the ether;
People dancing and Snapchatting;
Whilst another library burns to the ground.

 

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Tai Chi Coaching Programme 2019

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Shi Kon Tai Chi Coaching Qualification

Introduction
This one day a month for 10 months intensive course will be taught personally by Steve Rowe 9th Dan, an internationally renowned Tai Chi teacher, Chairman and founder of both the Martial Arts Standards Agency and Shi Kon Martial Arts International. It is designed to certificate and give Tai Chi Coaches the ability to teach Tai Chi and run and administer a club to gold level standard. Participants will be registered with Shi Kon Martial Arts International Association, the British Council for Chinese Martial Arts (the Sport England registered Governing Body for Chinese Martial Arts) and the Martial Arts Standards Agency. The coaching part of the qualification will be the BCCMA level 2 and through these registrations we can lead you to the required DBS and Child Protection courses and the work required to gain the prestigious Sport England ‘Clubmark’ accreditation for your club.

The course will cover the following in depth and enable you to teach:

Meditation and Mindfulness – standing, sitting, walking and laying down.

Neigong – the 5 standing ‘yin and yang’ and neutral postures for breathing, emotional intelligence, postural alignment, the 3 bows, left and right and upper and lower body harmonies.

Qigong – the Yang Family exercises that soften the body, open the joints and myofascia and categorise the energies needed to do Tai Chi techniques,

The 8 Principles – that underpin and support all martial art movements.

The 13 Strategies – of Tai Chi that thread through all movement to make it effective.

The Yang Forms – The ‘Grasp Sparrow’s Tail’ Form that is suitable for beginners and short courses and contain all the essentials to begin learning Tai Chi and the 20 minute ‘Yang Chen Fu 108’ ‘gold standard’ form of Yang Family Tai Chi that you would expect any Yang style teacher to be able to teach.

Pushing Hands – Push Hands is the introduction to partner work. It takes the ‘constructive cycle’ of the form and utilises the ‘destructive cycle’ giving points on a circle that the cardinal strategies would be used. For this qualification, coaches will learn horizontal and vertical circle push hands drills, along with wrist and forearm rolling and the 4 ‘receiving’ technique drills.

Application – From the forms and pushing hands, participants will learn applications of the techniques and why Steve Rowe is the acknowledged expert and his knowledge used and respected by security and law enforcement services across Europe.

All the techniques will be videoed separately using top practitioners of the system with guiding ‘voice over’ by Steve Rowe and uploaded to a private FB page for technical support.

The Cost – of the entire qualification is £1500. This can be paid in advance or by £150 deposit to secure your place and 9 subsequent monthly payments when the programme starts by direct debit of £150.

The Qualification starts in January 2019 and the training days will be at Steve’s full time Dojo in Chatham Kent UK from 10am – 4pm

Anyone needing any extra help or training will be able to take additional private lessons with Steve at a ‘members cost’ of £50 per hour.

If you are interested in registering message Steve Rowe on FB, call or text on 07545 23 22 21 or email steve@shikon.com

Proposed Dates 11.30am – 4pm are:
12th January
9th February
9th March
6th April
11th May
8th June
6th July
10th August
7th September
12th October

 

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