Alan Coady’s Musical Blog

Last Monday, I was invited to give a presentation on Tai Chi Chuan as part of Wallyford Primary School’s Health Week. For health & safety reasons, much of the content was demonstration although I was keen to involve pupils wherever possible and did this through various competitions. I was delighted to have the assistance of Andreas Schoter – a fellow senior instructor in the Five Winds School of Tai Chi Chuan, which is based in Meadowbank Stadium, Edinburgh. I was also very grateful for the organisational help of staff and pupils who set up and ran the projector for the Powerpoint slides which were intended to help give the demo some shape.

Around 90 photos were taken during the one hour presentation and the camera ran out of memory before we got onto the weapons section (sabre, spear & sword). Following sensible guidelines it was agreed that only photos featuring groups of pupils from some distance would be considered and no names would be posted. In the end it turns out that the few photos fitting the bill contained pupils whose parents express wish was that their children do not appear in photographs. So, only photographs of Andreas & myself have been saved.

While not wishing to bang on about history, I thought it would interest the pupils to see pictures of our teacher, Sifu Ian Cameron (pictured left) and his teacher Grandmaster Cheng Tin Hung with whom he studied in Hong Kong (right).

We were keen to point out the short lineage of the four steps from Hong Kong to Wallyford.

One of the many competitions involved a group of pupils trying to hold a posture called Single Whip for as long as possible. The posture involves a low stance which taxes the legs and many adult beginners show a disinclination to carry on after 10 seconds or so – few last as long as 30 seconds. We showed the pupils the stance and carried on with the presentation, inviting pupils simply to sit down when they’d had enough. Five minutes later, they were still holding the posture. This reminded me of something my father has told me many times. He was, for many years, Headteacher at Our Lady of Loretto in Musselburgh and used to say that he knew it would be a good year for the football team if there were a couple of Wallyford lads in the squad as they had a bit of steel when going in for a tackle. Well, the boys and girls in that competition certainly demonstrated that and, in the end, we felt compelled to give them all a prize.

As expected the pupils enjoyed the weapons forms and the free sparring demos.  When it came to self-defence, we demostrated the move/posture in the hand form, and then the martial appliation of the move e.g.

  Throw The Fist       Stroke The Lute      Fist Under Elbow

As you can see from the photos I, being the host, played the part of the vanquished while Andreas, the guest, enjoyed the role of the victor

Many took part in form and pushing hands competitions and several had a go at punching focus pads.

At the end, many sensible questions were asked including the anticipated one about how long we had been training. In my own case the answer was 15 years and 20 in Andreas’ case. I was glad that this came up as the idea of lifelong learning must surely have registered when pupils realised that we had stuck with the same hobby and with the same teacher for around twice the length of their entire life. 

A couple of requests were also made. One, we could indulge – to demonstrate the spear form at top speed. Another - to perform a back-flip – we declined - health and safety, you understand.