I’ve been trying to plan my taiji and qigong year for the past couple of months. Naturally I don’t want to clash my workshops with anyone else’s but I had to go to a number of sources to find out what’s going on and when. It took ages. There are already some unfortunate clashes. But the result is …..drumroll….. a taiji calendar of events in Scotland.
I hope it will be useful not only to students wanting to see what’s on but also to organisers so that they can avoid clashes.
We’re kind of making it up as we go along. What information do people need? And of course it’s not definitive. Some workshops are only circulated by email or facebook page to people who already follow that school, because, for example, students of Yang style taiji will not be interested in going to a Chen style workshop. That’s fair enough.
Then again, some teachers are a bit mysterious – they don’t mean to be – they are used to the same people turning up every year, usually members of their weekly classes, who know what to expect. Or they don’t mention the cost of the workshop, or the times, which means that people have to ask, wait for an answer and then discover that, by the time you’ve booked travel and accommodation, what seemed a reasonably priced workshop has used up a large chunk of the annual budget.
However, there are a lot of workshops, particularly Qigong workshops, that are of interest to a wide range of people, so here is a start. I tried to find a plug in for the website but all the calendars I came across required me to write an article about it, which will be too time consuming. In the end I went for a Google calendar. It still needs me to fill it in to start it off, but I believe that it is editable, thus enabling organisers themselves to add more information as it comes to hand. If you can suggest a better one, please let me know.
If you’re organising an event and would like it to be included here, please provide as much information as possible. I think what we need to know is:
- Date
- Place (General and postcode for satnav)
- Times (Can I get there in time or do I need accommodation?)
- Teacher and style
- Particular topic (Have I done this before or is it new? Is it suitable for beginners, or do you have to be able to stand on one leg? )
- Cost (including how and when to pay and whether a deposit is required)
- Are refreshments or meals provided or available?
At the moment I’m just covering Scotland but if anyone can point me to a better calendar with a way of searching by area, it could be rolled out nationwide or even international.
All feedback welcome!
