Last summer, I (David Carlton) taught a "Silk Reeling Principles" course; people who took it seemed to find it interesting and useful. So I'm trying to figure out if I should teach that course again this year; alternatively, I might teach a new, experimental course instead: the new course would partially focus on the concept of Song and partially focus on standing meditation exercises. If you're interested in either course, please read this web page and then fill out an online interest survey; that survey will help me figure out if there's enough interest for me to offer one of the courses and, if so, which course is of more interest.
The goal of the Silk Reeling Principles course is to improve your understanding of the insides of your body, helping you connect with the Silk Reeling Exercises in a deeper way and creating richer links between those exercises and your Taiji forms. (It makes the exercises more interesting, too!) Ultimately, we'll try to understand the concept of "silk" and how silk links all of your body together into a single unit.
The course will be taught over five sessions; each session will cover a different principle. The principles that we'll cover are:
This course is about the concept of Song. Song means relaxation, but it's a particular kind of relaxation: it's not relaxing in a way that causes your body to collapse, Song is instead a way of relaxing that allows your body to expand via the release of tension. We'll explore how to express Song in various ways while performing the the Laojia First Form, and how Song plays out inside your body.
That's probably not enough for a full course, though, so we'll also spend time covering different forms of standing meditation in class. We'll go through the physical alignments of standing meditation in detail, and we'll connect the relaxation and opening up that comes from standing meditation with Song.
This course will also be taught over five sessions; the topics will be:
This would be the first time that I've taught this course; I've thought about it enough that I'm optimistic that it will go well, but it's still an experiment.
These courses are intended for people who are already familiar with the Silk Reeling Exercises and the Lao Jia first form as practiced in Master Tony Wong's Saturday classes. If you're relatively new to leading the exercises at the start of the Saturday class, or if you're are thinking that you might want to start leading those exercises soon, then you're at a good level for these courses.
Whichever course I choose will be taught on the first Sunday of the month every month from May through September, from 10am to noon. I'm planning to hold it at Laurelwood Park in San Mateo, though I might change the location depending on who is interested. I'm planning to charge $50 for the five-class set. I'll send out a detailed set of notes after each class, to help you review the what we covered.
If either or both course interests you, please fill out my online interest survey: without that, I won't know which course to offer, or if there's enough interest to offer a course at all! If you have any questions, you can reach me via WhatsApp or Signal (see my posts in the discussion group there for contact information), or you can email me at carlton@bactrian.org.