This year’s Tai Chi Camp (June 17-22) was our fifth Tai Chi Camp with our teacher Lenzie Williams. As always, the experience was fruitful on every level, from deep work with the body, a great deal of learning, and of course getting to spend time with an absolutely wonderful community of Tai Chi players in the beautiful setting of Walker Creek Ranch.
This year’s camp seemed to have gone by faster than other years. It may have felt that way as in the past camp normally came around as a real break from the regular schedule of daily life, while this time life had already been floating along so that we didn’t have the shift in perception of time that we had in the past. It may also have been that it was our fifth camp and having some familiarity and sense of how camp goes, though I think each camp has its own unique sense of time and this one felt as if time was just flying by.
Although it felt fast, the camp was a very welcome time and experience. I felt that the work on the body building a more stable posture really seemed to have transferred over to daily life as I feel much better grounded since camp. One of the biggest take aways from camp this year for me personally was the discussions on practice. Being in Lenzie’s school and having been to other camps, I felt like I had heard a number of these ideas before, but like many things in Tai Chi, they did not ever really make the impression that they did until this time around. (I have the feeling Lenzie has not done anything different but just simply the my mind is now opening up to ideas he’s been explaining for years… :P)
I know from past camps that I would always have learned a great deal but somehow would miss carrying a large portion of what was learned into the every day practice after camp. Since the end of camp though I think that I’ve really begun to establish a strong daily practice now, largely in part due things really clicking from what was discussed at camp about practice, but also starting to keep a journal logging what I’ve been doing at each of my practices (warmups, form, sections of form postured, standing, etc.). Practices since camp have been as mindful as they ever have been and I’ve been enjoying waking up each morning and again engaging with study and practice of Tai Chi.
While the camp came and gone, I have a strong feeling that I will remember this camp as one where many things came to fruition. It was another great camp with our teacher and friends from the school as well as new friends and old from other parts of the country. I feel very fortunate and grateful to be able to experience these camps and am looking forward to the next camp already! ^_^