MDA Dublin News
We are an active organisation promoting the wonderful art of Traditional Tai Chi Chuan. Find out more about how you can enjoy something practised by millions of people around the world.
Stay up to date with our news, upcoming events, workshops and seminars
9 Tai Chi classes running this week across Dublin and Kildare.
Location: Clontarf Parish Centre, Church of St John the Baptist, Seafield rd West, Clontarf.
Day/time: Tuesday 8:00 - 9:00pm
prebooking required
IInstructor: Ross Cousens
Contact: ross@masterdingacademy.com
mob: 087 752 7013
Location: St. David's National School, Piper's Hill, Naas, Co. Kildare.
Day/time: Sunday 10:00 - 11:30am, Tuesday 7:30 - 9:00pm
prebooking required
Instructor: Robert Waterhouse
Contact: robwat0123@gmail.com
mob: 085 749 1719
Location: Yoga Dublin Studio Dundrum, Balally Luas Station
4a Rockfield Central
Day/time: Wednesday 8:15 - 9:15pm prebooking required
Instructor: Ross Cousens
Contact: ross@masterdingacademy.com
mob: 087 752 7013
Location: Yoga Dublin Studio Ranelagh, 28a Dartmouth Road,
Day/time: Thursday 8:15 - 9:15pm prebooking required
Instructor: Ross Cousens
Contact: ross@masterdingacademy.com
mob: 087 752 7013
Location: Lotus Yoga Studio, Little Fitzwilliam Place, D2
Day/time: Monday 6:15-8:00pm (prebooking essential)
Instructor: Mark Brady
Contact: markbrady77@gmail.com
mob: 086 355 5369
Location: Our Lady´s Hall, Fairview, Dublin 3
Day/time: Thursday 10am
Instructor: Nicole Mills
Prebooking required
Contact: taichiclassesdublin@posteo.ie
mob: 086 397 5979
Location: Ringsend Irishtown Community Centre, Dublin 4
Day/time: Monday 10am
Instructor: Declan Mills
Prebooking required
Contact: declanmills@gmail.com
mob: 087 294 2234
Location: Barbara Ward Centre, Distillery Road, Dublin 3
Day/time: Monday 7pm
Instructor: Nicole Mills
Prebooking required
Contact: taichiclassesdublin@posteo.ie
mob: 086 397 5979
Location: Leixslip Amenities Centre, Colloinstown
Day/time: Wednesday 7:00 - 8:30pm
Instructor: Brian Bergin
Contact: bpbergin@gmail.com
mob: 087 215 7231
Tai Chi classes running this week, commencing July 13th.
Location: Clontarf Parish Centre, Church of St John the Baptist, Seafield rd West, Clontarf.
Day/time: Tuesday 8:00 - 9:00pm
prebooking required
IInstructor: Ross Cousens
Contact: ross@masterdingacademy.com
mob: 087 752 7013
Location: St. David's National School, Piper's Hill, Naas, Co. Kildare.
Day/time: Sunday 10:00 - 11:30am, Tuesday 7:30 - 9:00pm
prebooking required
Instructor: Robert Waterhouse
Contact: robwat0123@gmail.com
mob: 085 749 1719
Location: Yoga Dublin Studio Dundrum, Balally Luas Station
4a Rockfield Central
Day/time: Wednesday 8:15 - 9:15pm prebooking required
Instructor: Ross Cousens
Contact: ross@masterdingacademy.com
mob: 087 752 7013
Location: Yoga Dublin Studio Ranelagh, 28a Dartmouth Road,
Day/time: Thursday 8:15 - 9:15pm prebooking required
Instructor: Ross Cousens
Contact: ross@masterdingacademy.com
mob: 087 752 7013
Location: Lotus Yoga Studio, Little Fitzwilliam Place, D2
Day/time: Monday 6:15-8:00pm (prebooking essential)
Instructor: Mark Brady
Contact: markbrady77@gmail.com
mob: 086 355 5369
Great news, our Clontarf class on Tuesday evenings is reopening next week, July 14th.
Regular members only at the moment, as time moves forwards we'll be able to accept new starters, but not yet...
See you all soon!
Tai Chi classes running this week, commencing July 6th.
Location: St. David's National School, Piper's Hill, Naas, Co. Kildare.
Day/time: Sunday 10:00 - 11:30am, Tuesday 7:30 - 9:00pm
prebooking required
Instructor: Robert Waterhouse
Contact: robwat0123@gmail.com
mob: 085 749 1719
Location: Yoga Dublin Studio Dundrum, Balally Luas Station
4a Rockfield Central
Day/time: Wednesday 8:15 - 9:15pm prebooking required
Instructor: Ross Cousens
Contact: ross@masterdingacademy.com
mob: 087 752 7013
Location: Yoga Dublin Studio Ranelagh, 28a Dartmouth Road,
Day/time: Thursday 8:15 - 9:15pm prebooking required
Instructor: Ross Cousens
Contact: ross@masterdingacademy.com
mob: 087 752 7013
Location: Lotus Yoga Studio, Little Fitzwilliam Place, D2
Day/time: Monday 6:15-8:00pm (prebooking essential)
Instructor: Mark Brady
Contact: markbrady77@gmail.com
mob: 086 355 5369
Our lives are beginning to return to normal with classes slowly opening up across the country. With that in mind, this will be our last Tai Chi challenge. From now on our focus will be bending towards reopening classes and serving our community once more.
Today’s challenge will be a little different, it’s one that you can carry forwards for as long as you like, it’s not so much a, ‘what we do’, and more of a, ‘how we approach what we do’.
Take a look at the pic below.
What comes to mind? What do we see?
The first interpretation is often to do with the pursuit of our dreams, essentially, ‘don’t give up’. Generally, very positive.
Digging a little deeper, there are difficulties, ‘the rhino shouldn’t be trying to be a unicorn, it should be the best rhino it can, because that’s what it is’. True...
Or, A rhino is a rhino, a unicorn is a unicorn, the rhino is real, the unicorn is a myth, it doesn’t exist. To try to be a unicorn is foolish, it can never be achieved and therefore to try is a waste of effort.
Hmmmm.
I feel it can be seen in a different way. A rhino will always be a rhino, real on this earth. A unicorn doesn’t exist, it’s an idea, not a reality. But that’s just a detail.
That doesn’t make its pursuit any less valid, or beneficial. As is said, ‘Reach for the moon, even if you fall short, you’re still among the stars.’
Tai Chi is about Yin and Yang. The mutual coexistence of opposites within a dynamic harmony. If I can hold two seemingly opposing thoughts simultaneously, I can reap the rewards of both. If I am ceaselessly striving for a goal I know I cannot achieve, that striving can take me much further than I could ever had achieved otherwise.
As long as we continue to understand that not achieving the goal is far different from failure, then our efforts will continue to yield progress.
Challenge 15:
Choose your goal and pursue it honestly with an open heart. Keep your feet on the ground while shooting for the stars and see how far you can get…
Enjoy!
Classes are beginning to return slowly. We have a number of classes reopening this week, Keep your eyes peeled for further updates, we'll endeavour to post the weekly class list on Sunday evenings each week.
If you see something you're interested in, contact the relevant Instructor directly and they'll give you further info..
Location: St. David's National School, Piper's Hill, Naas, Co. Kildare.
Day/time: Sunday 10:00 - 11:30am, Tuesday 7:30 - 9:00pm
prebooking required
Instructor: Robert Waterhouse
Contact: robwat0123@gmail.com
mob: 085 749 1719
Location: Yoga Dublin Studio Dundrum, Balally Luas Station
4a Rockfield Central
Day/time: Wednesday 8:15 - 9:15pm prebooking required
Instructor: Ross Cousens
Contact: ross@masterdingacademy.com
mob: 087 752 7013
Location: Yoga Dublin Studio Ranelagh, 28a Dartmouth Road,
Day/time: Thursday 8:15 - 9:15pm prebooking required
Instructor: Ross Cousens
Contact: ross@masterdingacademy.com
mob: 087 752 7013
Restarting 6th July:
Location: Lotus Yoga Studio, Little Fitzwilliam Place, D2
Day/time: Monday 6:15-8:00pm (prebooking essential)
Instructor: Mark Brady
Contact: markbrady77@gmail.com
mob: 086 355 5369
Enjoy!
Tai Chi Challenge 14
What if we could live our lives with our mind/body still, like a pond on a quiet morning, the surface like glass. When we act, complex dynamics come into being, but that internal stillness remains.
When we practice our Tai Chi, we’re training the basic building blocks of this state, we raise the spirit, relax the body, move from the centre etc. We train all these pieces with individual focus, so that we may bring them together, in just the right quantities, when they are needed.
Have you ever noted the feeling in the body when anxious, upset or in a hurry to get to a destination? The breath rises, instead of breathing to the centre, just below the navel, we breath to the chest, almost gasping for air. If we were to observe someone arrive into a meeting, late, chest heaving up and down with breath, we would hardly look at them and think, ‘wow, they look composed’.
Breathing to the chest raises the energy in the body, we become top heavy, easily unbalanced.
If I was to take a Pyramid of Giza, turn it over and balance it on its tip, it would stand there, perfectly balanced, until the first stiff breeze… Before it fell, we could say that it was in balance, but was very unstable.
Now let’s turn that pyramid over again, now it’s broad at the base with the point at the top. Nothing on earth could move that pyramid now.
Balance, unmoving, versus stability, unmovable.
Through the practice of Tai Chi, we seek to embody not only balance, but stability. When I’m balanced everything’s fine, but if all it takes is one sideways look from a colleague to upset me, then what use is that balance? But if I’m stable, anyone can look at me anyway they like, no problem, let’s go and have a cup of tea…
Challenge #15
Use the breath to the centre of the body to help drain tension away from the upper body.
Separate to your normal Chi Kung practice, stand in Wuji posture, visualise rain falling inside your body, everything from the top, falling downwards, it’s sticking to the inside of your body and running down, like rain running down a windowpane. Feel the settling within the body and the resultant density increase at the centre.
Remember that feeling. Now, when you practice Chi Kung and Form, forget about the visualisation, bring that feeling.
Enjoy!
Tai Chi Challenge Week 14:
Speed.
Possibly the single most obvious defining feature of Tai Chi, is its speed of practice. Anyone walking through a park and spotting a group practicing tai chi would be able to correctly identify what they’re seeing due to its slow, measured pace.
This pacing can be viewed in many ways, its continuous, unhurried nature reflects our greater tai chi journey, at once not rushing, yet simultaneously, at no time stopping. It’s this slow speed that allows us to bring all parts of our body and our mind, together into one, and then moving forwards, in unity.
Possibly the greatest gift this slow speed has for us is the opportunity to identify areas of our practice that we’re not confident with.
Once we’ve learned a form well enough to perform it without too much thought, we can easily speed through parts that we’re not comfortable with, without looking too closely. Often, we don’t quite know what the problem is, it’s just a vague unease. Of course, these are the areas we need to be focusing on more intently and not accidentally, ‘looking the other way’.
It’s natural to not want to look at the problems, they’re our weaknesses and admitting to weakness, even to ourselves is challenging.
There’s a great saying, ‘educate the fear’. Whatever it is that we’re avoiding, if we look at it square on, we see it for what it is, not what we imagine it to be, and its power is taken away. Now we can get on with analysis and correction.
The pacing of our form can give us an opportunity to look at these areas from a distance, by slowing down an area that we’re not happy with, slower than normal pace, whatever the fault is, it will present itself.
Challenge 14:
Slow down.
Take a problematic movement from the form and practice it slowly, then slower still. See the part that’s causing the problem. It might be balance while standing on one leg as you kick, it could be maintaining upright posture while pivoting weighted on the heel, it could be stepping smoothly and not falling into the next posture.
Whatever it is, slow it down, find the particular issue. Once found, it’s relatively easy to work the problem out. If it’s particularly stubborn, refer to Yang Cheng Fu’s 10 essential points, there are a lot of answers there.
Enjoy.
Tai Chi Challenge #13
To see an accomplished Tai Chi practitioner practicing the form can be hypnotic. Even if we’re not sure what we’re looking at, we know we’re seeing something special. Mind and body are moving as one, the very air seems to coalesce around them.
The joy of seeing real skill is that it can give us a direction that we might pursue in our own practice. A clue to where we might improve. The real challenge can be in correctly identifying the change we need to make. It’s all too easy to think, ‘I need to move more smoothly’, but picking the correct structural/intentional change that will yield the desired result?, that can be a needle in a haystack.
This week we’ll be focusing on that smoothness of movement. We’re going to work on putting our intention across our entire body, smoothly, everywhere at the same time.
I’m sure we’ve all had the opportunity to experience swimming, the water supports us and our body feels light, arms floating upwards with zero effort. At the same time, if we try to run while standing in a pool, we find that the harder we try, the more the water resists us. But if we move mindfully, all as one, the body cuts through.
Challenge 13
Part 1:
Practice the foundation form three times as if you’re standing neck deep in water. The body light. There’s no rushing now. To do so will result in resistance. Let the body flow, smoothly.
Now we move on. Instead of water, imagine a fluid so thick that if you stood in it you couldn’t fall over, it would support your body weight fully. Something like treacle. Now you have to be fully present in every single movement you make. To raise and lower your hands you’ll need to push up then draw down. To step and shift the weight you’ll need to push your leg through first, root, then move the entire body through. Lack of intention at any part of the body will result in that part not moving.
Part 2:
Practice the foundation form as if you’re neck deep in treacle. Repeat three times.
How does it feel? With luck you should be beginning to feel a new level of smoothness and integration. Keep practicing…
