Learning the Tai Chi Spear Form
By Rachel Prevost
Students from The Peaceful Dragon demonstrate Shaolin Iron Body techniques.
The Peaceful Dragon held a special workshop in their amazing facility in Charlotte’s Steele Creek area over the weekend of July 9-11 [2010]. Unlike previous years, the focus for the workshop this year was one thing—the Tai Chi Spear Form.
[Note: Rachel was unable to attend the Friday session, but that only proves that you can miss a day and still have a great time!]
Saturday’s session started with those who hadn’t been there Friday signing in, paying for spears, and saying “Hi” to everyone. All the students filled up the main studio, everyone in lines to bow in to begin class.
While The Peaceful Dragon may have had the majority of students present, there were students from many other gwans there too. Our Gwan was well represented with our Sifu (Wes Adams) and 9 students.
Saturday’s morning session picked up where Friday’s evening session left off. After a brief demonstration of some of the more complicated parts of the form, everyone did their best to learn the sections of the form under review. Most of the morning consisted of half of the students on one end of the studio doing a section of the form followed by the other half.
Right after lunch was a Lion / Dragon dance and demonstration of the various skills taught at The Peaceful Dragon. It started with two lions led by Robert Beaver that was joined by a dragon made up of several students. Immediately after that their demonstration team did a high-energy routine of various weapons, Tai Chi, Lea Tai Fighting and Shaolin Iron Body Training. Personally the things that stood out the most were the unbelievable Iron Body skills, the dragon (I hadn’t seen one before then), and the parody of martial arts movies done during the Lea Tai Fighting.
Afternoon was back to work, progressing step-by-step through the form. We were all outside for awhile, it was really hot (and I know personally I was wishing our Gwan’s uniform included shorts). Throughout the day the parts we had previously learned were put together with the entire form (at least as much as we had learned so far) for a review.
Sunday started differently than the previous two days; this time we began with a group meditation. We all sat in the main studio with the curtains drawn which cast the room in a dark red hue. Half the room was led in a chant intoning “Ohm,” while the other half took a deep breath in preparation for their turn. While it might sound like sitting in a chair for an hour “Ohm-ing” would be boring, it was anything but. The combination of deep breathing and meditative focus on the sound made it a very restful exercise.
The rest of Sunday’s morning and after-noon sessions followed the format of the previous days. After the formal instruction of the form was finished, we were given time to review by ourselves to better understand all that we had been taught.
Most of the “Snake and Crane” students took over one of the smaller studios to review together. Whether inside or outside we all tried to follow step by step; some gained a better understanding of the form than others, but we all attained a fundamental grasp of the Tai Chi Spear Form just by attending.
Rachel Prevost & Dragon
Afterwards we were all given certificates of competition to document our attendance at the workshop. A brief question and answer session took place next. After a group picture, we all left to go home for the weekend, most of us more than a little body sore and with heads overflowing with new ideas and techniques.