Some time ago a lady called Kirsten Wyeth attended a qigong course on Holy Isle and wrote an article for the Tai Chi Union magazine entitled Qigong with Goats. During Bob’s recent workshop, I couldn’t get the name out of my head all week, hence the title of this one!
We were there with our Teacher Bob Lowey to learn The Poem. This was composed by the late Professor Zhang Guande, who originally created a series of Daoyin Yangsheng Gong sets designed to focus on various parts of the body. These followed a formula of having 8 moves, one forwards, one diagonal, one stretchy, one twisty, one powerful, one low and twisty, another diagonal and a final one to settle the qi. The Poem takes 20 moves from these sets including a few linking taiji moves and puts them into a flowing sequence. Five days, four moves each day. Bob challenged us to complete them and we did, accompanied, of course, by appropriate music.
While some of the moves were simple, some were technically complex and some were very physical. Fortunately there were a few seniors who had already learnt The Poem and a few like me who knew the original moves but had difficulty controlling the urge to repeat them four times each side, so there was plenty of help for beginners. It was a great opportunity and a great achievement for the first timers to experience such a popular routine.
What could have been long days, were interspersed with films that Bob kept finding on his laptop of the early days on Holy Isle. Twenty eight years is quite something and I’m sure we all felt privileged to have been there. There were also tui na experiments and time to visit St Molaise’s cave, the painted rocks and to walk to the lighthouses or over the top.
The introduction of an hour of karma yoga (chores) to help the depleted numbers of volunteers on the island also offered some mental respite and we enjoyed our time, helping in the kitchen, cleaning or gardening. A nice touch was the gift of seeds from the garden for each visitor when we left.
As seems to happen all too often, the start of the course was delayed due to ferries (large and small) having problems with gears, tides and strong winds. Many thanks to Lamlash Ferries who were the ones to contact us to advise of the new dates and times. Condolences to those who were also affected by the late departure from Arran of the Brodick ferry and resultant missing connections.
