Lighthouse Tai Chi®

Our current timetable for aqua sessions for the benefits and general information, please visit our dedicated page ,  or scroll down to find your class Or click on the picture above to watch our short introduction video Wednesdays  11am – 11.45am Ramsbottom Venue : Ramsbottom Pool & Fitness Centre,  Stubbins Lane, Ramsbottom BL0 0PT   Prices & Bookings Tel 0161 253 7000 Fridays  9am – 9.15am Whitworth, Rossendale Whitworth Leisure Centre Venue: Whitworth Leisure Centre, John Street, Whitworth, Rochdale OL12 8BT Prices & Bookings Tel: 01706 801770 Opens 17th October 2024 Fridays  11am – 11.45am Barnoldswick Venue: West Craven Sports Centre Kelbrook Road, Barnoldswick, BB18 5TB Prices & Bookings Tel 01282 666710 Our Safeguarding & DBS Policy Our Data Protection Policy Our Social Media, Filming & Photography Policy Our Trademarks & Copyright Return to home page

  Names and understanding The use of poetic and functional names in Tai Chi and Qigong can be difficult to decipher or simplistically obvious. When we first hear some of the names of the postures, it can be amusing and confusing: ‘ part wild horse’s mane’, ‘ twin dragons emerge from the sea ’ and ‘ stand like a tree .’ What we need to appreciate is that these names are translations from the original Chinese. So, with as with any translation, things can be lost in the process. Much of the knowledge of tai chi and qigong was traditionally encoded in poetic form or as a song. Many of the students would not have been literate, so the names aided in the memorising of the sequence and its applications. Additionally cultural and philosophical differences, along with the inherent secrecy of martial arts culture, could lead you to misunderstandings and getting the wrong end of the stick. However, when we hear these names, we instantly get a picture or concept in our mind. Combining t...

Our guest blog for August is by  Judith Van Drooge.  Judith is a very accomplished tai chi instructor whom we have admired for many years, and is particularly known to us for her tai chi sword expertise and passion for sharing.  We asked her to provide a short, personal article about her feelings and experience of tai chi sword, with some links for you to find out more. The lovely flow of these words is an art in itself, we hope you will enjoy reading and re-reading it as much as we do. She has practised Yang Lineage Tai Chi Chuan with Luis Molera and Grandmaster William C.C. Chen since 1999, with great pleasure and devotion. Judith is an all-round practitioner who successfully competed in national and international tournaments attaining gold, silver and bronze medals in Forms (weapons), Chi Kung and Push Hands.  Judith has her own school Inner Touch Tai Chi in Zwolle, the Netherlands and has been a regular teacher at most of the major European Tai Chi events....

Be Consistent To acquire a skill or to remember a process or action takes time and practice.  When we begin to learn a new skill or pastime it is important to invest time if we want to progress and improve our understanding or skill. Tai Chi and Qigong are no different.  Consistency in practice takes many forms: being present and attending, understanding and engage with learning, home practice and research. Turn up regularly. Life tends to get in the way of what you really want to pursue, so turn up to your lesson every week. Repetition is the key to reinforcing a new habit/skill/movement, and you will need to have corrections to keep you on the right track. If you leave long gaps between your practice, you will not remember much, if anything from the previous session, so you will always be relearning the postures at the same level and will not progress. Treating the session as a workout, just following, and copying, and not engaging with actually learning to do it for you...

Knowing where you are going is always important, and knowing your direction in Tai Chi is fundamental to the thirteen principal movements of Tai Chi. The five directions described in Tai Chi are as follows: Going forward, going backwards, looking/moving left, looking moving right and holding centre. These are attributed to the four cardinal points of the compass, North, South, East, West and the Centre.  They can be referenced to the Five Elements and each direction takes on the characteristics of the associated Element. In terms of Five Elements the postures have these overall characteristics: Forward - Fire sudden intense energy/ posture. Backward - Water flow yielding energy/ posture. Turning left - Metal cutting absorbing energy/ posture. Turning right - Wood engulfing spiralling energy/ posture. Holding centre - Earth neutralising heavy energy/ posture. These directions can be applied literally; some schools prescribe facing in a certain direction when sta...

Day 1: Tuesday 2nd February 2021 we broke ground.  Exciting times ahead as all the preparation work is now started and the weather gods have been kind. Seb Wilcock and his crew have been with us bright and early to move the plants we wanted to save, check over the design plans, make any adjustments and get started. The first job was to get the old paving stones removed and move the plants. They found even older paving stones underneath. We made this short video to help document the progress Day 2: The Digger On Wednesday, t he digger arrived to get the tree stumps and roots out of the garden and level the ground.  Next door's littlest is celebrating his birthday and him and his big brother were very excited about the digging and machines.  As we live on a slope the red line is showing where we now need to fill to even off the ground. We had erosion towards the oak stump.  There were some fabulous roots unearthed but yet to find any archaeology or Saxon Gold.  Th...