Cloud Hands T'ai Chi

05/18/2024

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/81M6fTNhZqHgQ54D/

HAPPY 100th BIRTHDAY, MAGGIE NEWMAN!!!
Beloved and gifted Tai Chi master.
Senior student of Cheng Man-Ching
Modern Dancer, Martial Artist, Kabuki Performer.

12/28/2021

07/30/2020

Contents:
This week’s leader / discussion
Upcoming Schedule
CMC Practitioner Directory
Joining Zoom

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cmc lotus 1971059.jpeg

”Lotus“ 1971, Cheng Man-Ch'ing

Dear T'ai Chi extended family,

These zoom sessions are an opportunity to follow different leaders at all levels of practice and from across the range of schools of Professor Cheng’s T'ai Chi Ch'uan.

You are of course welcome to just attend the form, but we hope you will stay for the discussions hosted by Mike Ward, either on an element of T’ai Chi practice with the guest leader or on an aspect of Chinese culture related to Professor Cheng.

This week the first third will be led by Maria Grazia Franzoni, followed by a lecture from Barbara Davis on Professor Cheng Man-ch'ing's Painting.

We hope that you will continue to join these sessions in the spirit of fellowship and scholarship.

And please share the details of the sessions with your students, classmates and teachers.

All previous discussions can be viewed here https://www.youtube.com/user/redmondentwistle/videos

Look forward to seeing you on Wednesday,

Mike and Redmond

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Upcoming Schedule

Wed July 29th

A first third led by Maria Grazia Franzoni, followed by a lecture from Barbara Davis on Professor Cheng Man-ch'ing's Paintings

By the age of 22, Professor Cheng attained a high level of mastery in the traditional three "excellences" of painting, poetry, and calligraphy.
Barbara Davis will discuss Professor's art career and show slides of his paintings.

About Barbara:

Barbara Davis began studying t'ai chi in the mid-1970s in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and continued at Naropa Institute's summer program with Ed Young, Maggie Newman, and Wolfe Lowenthal, before commencing study with Mr. Liu Hsi-heng in Taiwan in the late 1980s. She completed a Master's in East Asian Studies at the University of Minnesota. Barbara is author of The Taijiquan Classics: An Annotated Translation, and translated Chen Weiming's Taiji Sword. She published Taijiquan Journal from 2000-2005. She teaches at Great River T'ai Chi Ch'uan in Minneapolis (www.greatrivertaichi.wordpress.com), and is working on a biography of Professor Cheng. Information about the biography can be found at www.chengmanching.wordpress.com.

Wed Aug 5th

A first third led by student of Professor Cheng, Fred Lehrman, followed by a discussion with Fred about his time studying with Professor Cheng in New York City and his practice of T’ai Chi Chuan.

———--

Cheng Man-Ch’ing Practitioner Directory

Out of the first third sessions a directory has developed which you can use to connect with old Tai Chi friends, meet to share practice, or to find a local teacher.

DIRECTORY LINK

If you would like to be included in the directory please add your details to the comments section in the document, and please indicate if you would like to be listed as a teacher.

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Joining Zoom

The sessions are every Wednesday at 8am PDT / 11am EDT / 4pm BST / 5pm CET / 11pm CST.

You don’t need to sign up for Zoom to join the meeting, just click on the link below.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/134194096

Meeting ID: 134 194 096

Password: 578844

Please try to log in 5-10 minutes before the hour so that we can start on the hour.

In the upper right hand corner of the Zoom window it should say either Speaker View or Gallery View.

Please select Gallery View.

IMG-0626.jpeg

Scroll on the north wall of 211 Canal St.
"Whither should I have a tongue so far-ranging that it may propagate T'ai Chi Ch'uan”, aspiration of M.C. Cheng, N.Y.C..1964
(trans. Ed Young)

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07/27/2020

Please join us Wednesdays at 11:00 am EDT.

Cheng Man-Ch-ing Wednesday Global Forum - July 29th
A lecture on Professor Cheng Man-ch'ing's Paintings.

By the age of 22, Professor Cheng attained a high level of mastery in the traditional three "excellences" of painting, poetry, and calligraphy. Barbara Davis will discuss Professor's art career and show slides of his paintings.

Maria Grazia Franzoni will guest lead the first third of the form this week.

Barbara Davis is author of The Taijiquan Classics: An Annotated Translation, and translated Chen Weiming's Taiji Sword. She teaches at Great River T'ai Chi Ch'uan in Minneapolis (www.greatrivertaichi.wordpress.com), and is working on a biography of Professor Cheng. Information about the biography can be found at www.chengmanching.wordpress.com.

The sessions are every Wednesday at 8am PDT / 11am EDT / 4pm BST / 5pm CET / 11pm CST.

You don’t need to sign up for Zoom to join the meeting, just click on the link below.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/134194096
Meeting ID: 134 194 096
Password: 578844

Painting detail: ”Lotus“ 1971, Cheng Man-Ch'ing

03/31/2020

It is good to see happiness in the world. It, too, is contagious. It reminds us what our hearts are capable of feeling.

A smile of unabashed joy, existing completely in the present moment, oblivious to the possibility of sadness, even though he could well have been crying from some disappointment moments before, or moments after THIS PRESENT MOMENT.

03/22/2020

The only time limit we have for learning in Tai Chi is our own expiration date.
I cannot believe how long it has taken me to make what little progress I have made in learning this wonderful art.
I take solace in being a Maryland Terrapin fan. A turtle's pace is an accurate reflection of my learning.
When the speed of one’s learning is being graphed, I have been long been example of how to “flatten the curve”.
Be safe. Be well.

03/21/2020

I found a poem written as a letter in the voice of Covid-19 virus. In it the virus is urging humans to move toward a more harmonious way of being and living on this planet. Rather than the earth punishing us for transgressions, and “pushing back” against an invasive species, the poem frames the virus as a messenger, a reminder.
It is pasted below.
Be well.

For Our Kids is a network of Canadian parents and grandparents taking action to give our kids a livable climate. Please join us. Start here: www.forourkids.ca/join

02/04/2020

To long for more,
and to disregard the beautiful before you,
are not the same.
We can still feel the unfolding moment-to moment joy of the Present in our Tai Chi practice, while simultaneously working to improve it.
In our lives, we can work to become our best selves, while still accepting, and embracing who we are in the Present.

05/25/2019

What must it be like…
To be a speck of dust.
To fly on the breeze like riding a dragon from Manitoba
South across the Great Plains,
Gazing down upon field and stream and river. Circling the globe, carried over oceans,
swirling within hurricanes, rising higher, and higher on hot air currents over the desert mountains of Morocco.
To be as limitless as the wind, and yet, not be the wind.
To be carried by the wind throughout the swirling, whirling currents of planetary streams of air.

Or to be a tiny grain of sand, borne by the currents of a small stream, only to be snatched from your bed by a great river at their confluence. Riding like flotsam, yet in, not on, the water. Swooping to darkened depths as the river plunges over rocks. Spinning like a top in its eddies. Gently laid to rest on a soft sandbar, only to be plucked up, and whisked away to the sea by a 500 year flood.
There, to be endlessly churned inside a tidal cement mixer, before being swept north along the Gulf Stream, carried to outskirts of England, North Africa and beyond.

What must it be like…
to be a tiny speck within something so grand, so vast, so incomprehensibly complex…
like a Who, in Horton’s Whoville,
or a human being, riding on a blue planet in an endless Universe?

01/17/2019

My daughter enjoying her impeccable demonstration of the Tai Chi Principle, "Body Upright".

This photo reminded me of a "Tai Chi Walking " exercise Robert Smith would have his students practice. We would separate the weight, then, when shifting it to the other foot, we would think about placing the weight into the palm of the opposite hand (Right foot weighted, left hand receives the weight).