My first Tai Chi Class

The first time I attended class was on a Saturday morning on a sunny Spring day. The class was being held outside that day as the weather was so good. Not knowing who was in charge of the class, I wandered up to someone who was correcting another person’s posture, assuming this must be their class. It turns out it wasn’t, but was instead a senior student helping a junior student. He kindly directed me to the right person and I was given details about the class and quickly signed up.

I had arrived during the Qigong class so had to wait a few more minutes for the Tai Chi class to start. When it did, we all gathered together and went through the warm-up, which I was told to just follow along with. Shortly after that, everyone broke up into small groups and I was being taught by my new Sifu one on one. As I had only read a little about Tai Chi, I had no idea what to ask or expect. Thankfully, my Sifu took the time to explain to me about the skill and what I would be learning.  This was followed by teaching me the first few movements of the first form on the Chen Taijiquan syllabus. We ran through it a few times, I asked some questions and then I had chance to practice it myself to see if I could remember. In hindsight, my movements we likely a bit clunky, but at the time I was loving practicing this amazing looking martial art.

Before I knew it, the hour was up and it was time to finish. I wasn’t ready to stop and wanted to carry on practicing the movements I had learned. I realised at this point that I would definitely be coming back to learn more.