Welcome to the taichido monthly email Newsletter where we give you news about taichido and Doshi Gary Robinson gives his thoughts on aspects (both practical and esoteric!) of tai chi and related areas.

I do not always sit comfortably with religion per se, but soon realized that tai chi was part of something much bigger and more holistic - a culture where philosophy, Buddhism, Taoism, health and ways of living and thinking were all part of the same melting pot; where if you were interested in the ‘wider view’ (and not just waving your arms about, as a discussion we had on the Western usage of Eastern things once criticized) you couldn’t pick a pebble from the river bed without feeling the weight of the whole flowing river. And what about this curious mixture of Japanese and Chinese elements – surely that wasn’t right? Gary’s reply to this was “I am a westerner with a Japanese religious faith practicing Chinese Arts – this is simply the way things are – there is harmony in diversity”.

Thus started something more than just a ‘tai chi instruction class’: moves would be halted (sometimes for the rest of the night!) to discuss amongst each other philosophical, intellectual, historical, martial, health - you name it – ramifications, sometimes going off at extraordinary tangents. This gave a much deeper understanding as time went by of just what we were really doing by practicing tai chi, and of the culture and ethos of which it is a small part.

The Tai Chi Netguide
I am the IT director of Winchester School of Art (the Art & Design School of the University of Southampton), and part of my job is web design – hey, I said, this would make a very interesting website, because this kind of ‘wider view’ doesn’t really seem have a presence on the internet for tai chi and here we are arguing and creating abundant material each week! and so the Southampton City Dojo website was born. Being an inherent ‘teacher’ (part of my job is academic), I expressed a frustration with ‘how to do’ books, which explained a great deal but the still images made it difficult to understand the move; and with videos which showed you the move in realtime, but didn’t instruct you on how to achieve it. I wanted to develop a ‘Tai Chi Netguide’ – a tool that would be freely available on the internet for anyone who wished to use it that combined both instructional text and a moving image. The technology was there and available, so we did it… While the Netguide does have its flaws and certainly cannot replace a teacher, I am happy to say that just from my email feedback over the last five years it seems a lot of people from all over the world have made use of it.

Things come and go, that was then and this is now: circumstances changed and the Southampton City Dojo as a place ceased to exist, replaced instead by informal gatherings at Gary’s house or in the local park, with a small core ‘group’ of the advanced practitioners and Gary’s specialism of small informal classes for beginners and intermediates. The website’s name no longer had relevance and intimated that it was a club site – the realization dawned on us (jokingly at first, and then increasingly seriously) that the dojo itself had moved out of a real place and into a virtual one, and so it evolved into Taichido.com. From those early days, the site has increased in size many times over and really has become a virtual dojo covering instruction, philosophical and intellectual discussion – in fact a myriad of the whole philosophical culture that tai chi is a part of; it enjoys a high monthly visitor-base and generates enormous interaction with the newsletter, emails, the find a teacher aspects, the guestbook (fledgeling website builders note: never underestimate the worth of the guestbook!) links, and so on. My apologies for the self-praise but there you go.

A new idea is born…
During 2002 a number of things sort of came together. I had had a large number of emails asking if we had a video to sell. Others wanted more instructional material over and above the Netguide. CD’s were also enquired about. We had ourselves on a number of occasions discussed how we might upgrade the Netguide, and in what way. Then Flash MX, Premier 6 and the extraordinary Sorenson video codec arrived on my computer, making it possible for us to have the technology to put all this lot together into an interactive product – taking the form of a CD, that could combine lots of different elements of tai chi instruction together to make a useful and informative tool. The Tai Chi Netguide V2 began.

What followed was a lot of brainstorming and discussion – how would you go about making something that would be useful? What should be included? I felt that the best view for a video would be from the front – but Gary and others thought that it would be from behind the teacher – just like in a class situation. We also asked ourselves just what else we look at when we are trying to follow the teacher: arms and feet. After lots of argument, all four views of each move have gone into the CD, so you get to choose for yourself which view or combination of views might be useful – from the front, from behind, close up of the hands, and close up of the feet.

That’s all very well, one of the group said, but with separate moves, how can you see the transition between each move? This is vitally important for the flow of the Form and is a major criticism of the original Netguide. So we’ve added a version of the Front and Back videos that shows you the move by starting from the previous one.

Tai chi footwork is like dancing: the feet move in a plan or sequence, and it would be very useful to see that. The original Netguide gave an animated footwork plan, but we’ve enhanced this by applying it to each individual move, and added the direction that the head is facing during that move as well.

What about breathing? Tai chi without proper breathing is, basically, waving your arms about (if I want to be argumentative...) Books usually have a separate section about breathing, and all the tai chi videos that I have seen do not tackle this at all – so how to we include it in a useful way? We settled on a ‘breathometer’ with each move ‘front’ video: and indicator for at which points you should ideally be fully breathed in (full) or fully breathed out (empty). The length of the breath is then the time it takes between these points.

Text instructions are an obvious choice: they allow you to think and analyse in your own time how the move is pieced together, and these are a re-written version different from the original Netguide. We also felt that it would be useful if you had the option to listen to an audio version of these instructions as you try out the move. A great deal of tai chi is about visualization, and in fact many of the moves are named after animal visualizations: when you ‘grasp the sparrow’s tail’ you are running your hand down the back and tail of a bird sat on your other palm - a very powerful visualization which helps to enhance the Form. Each move therefore has a visualization text, plus a symbolic interpretation of that move to help get a feel for the deeper meaning of the Form.

The Guide runs in order, but is non-linear in the way that you can jump to any move that you need to at any time. The active window is set to be slightly smaller than 800 x 600 pixels, but you can toggle a full screen mode, no matter what your screen resolution is. There is a visual introduction tour on how the Guide works, and introductions to tai chi and to the Long Yang Form.

Included on the CD are other necessary items: There are a series of stances and linking moves that form part of the structure of the form, and there is a video/text instruction guide to basic warmup: simple stretching excersizes which loosen up the neck, arms, legs and torso prior to executing the Form.

Finally, with all this fragmented video on the CD, we thought that it would be good to show a movie of the entire section of the Long Yang Form. Shot on location at the London Shogiyoji Trust’s Zen Garden, this continual video forms a second separate CD included as part of the pack.

Long Yang Part One
This interactive CD is the first one of a three-CD set: each CD tackles each ‘part’ of the Form, which can either be executed separately or combined to form the full Long Form. This CD (Part One) is now available, and we are starting shooting of the second and third CD’s next weekend. Parts Two and Three will be available hopefully during the summer of this year, and we’ll let you know as soon as they come out.

Where is it sold?
We have created a new website called: www.taichidoshop.com and www.taichidoshop.co.uk especially to sell the CD’s. You can also get to the site directly from the front page link at www.taichido.com or from this newsletter link if you are still online. The sale of these CDs is not limited to the UK – we can accept orders worldwide, although please note that the CD only comes in English language.

How much does it cost, and do I get a discount?
The cost of the CD is £19.99, but we are currently running an introductory offer to launch the CD of £15.99 (approx $25 US). As a special thanks to our Newsletter subscribers, you can get a further discount by following the ‘Newsletter subscribers click here’ link at Taichidoshop, which will get you a further discount, bringing your price down to only £13.99!

To get the discount, you will need a username and password, which will only be found inside your newsletters: username = “access”, password = “separation”. If you experience any problems getting through, please email me at enquiries@taichidoshop.com

Taichidoshop uses Paypal as its secure credit card transaction method. Most credit card types are valid, and the advantage of Paypal is that once you have given your details, you become a ‘Paypal member’ so that for any of the other thousands of sites using Paypal you will merely need to put your Paypal login details. Paypal is an online banking and transaction system that creates an account for you, letting you send money to other Paypal members over the internet, receive it and transfer it to your bank or to purchase from any of the Paypal/Ebay-authorised sites (like ours). For more information on Paypal, click here

Just have a look
We hope that this product is informative and helpful to learners of the art of tai chi, and ask you just to have a look at the website and tour and see what you think. This is the only time that an entire newsletter will be dediacted to the CD, although details will be on each one.

Many thanks for your time, Mark