Universal Taichi Qigong School

Dear Friends,

We are happy to share that our website has been under redesign for the last few days and is now complete and accessible. Please take a look and feel free to share your thoughts...

The thing about these ancient arts, or disciplines if you will, is that there are layers within layers of learning.
During these days of lockdown, the Zoom classes that our guru, Rakesh Menon, has been holding have revealed further levels of intricacies.
As a student for the past 15 plus years I thought I had acquired some familiarity with the various routines. Perhaps. Then comes the realisation that each familiar routine can be taken to a higher level. Also, that there are so many untouched areas that one begins to wonder how many lifetimes will be needed.
However, with every new learning comes a heightened sense of awareness that cautions one not to despair!
Salut!

Tai Chi doesn't stop, not even in the days of Corona lockdown. One practises alone at home, essentially, but also attends classes, together ... Zoom.
Rakesh is busy inspiring all his students, tailoring his lessons to the need of the day.
Way to go!

Most of us look forward to the Tai Chi camp because it means intensive training over one-and-a-half days, always something new learnt, and a chance to get to know a bit more about our fellow learners.
Feb 22nd, 23rd, 2020, did not disappoint.
We were introduced to the next level of whatever we had been doing at class and, as usual, the challenge tapped our slumbering potential. Grunts, groans and good-natured complaints notwithstanding.
But when your guru's guru is part of the camp, the atmosphere is charged with awe, heightened expectation and some trepidation. Tall, straight, spare and angular with penetrating eyes, John Lazarus Mascarenhas, Lazarus Sir to Rakesh, has been teaching martial arts for 45 years. He began learning at the age of 14 and his was the privilege of, literally, bashing Rakesh into shape. Not surprising that he trains commandos, police personnel as well as corporates in self-defence. Children and lay people as well. In spite of his stern exterior we realised he is sensitive and humble, willing to give intense personal attention to anyone who needed or sought help.
We were taken on a journey into the abstract side of Tai Chi and experienced, forcefully, the Yin and Yang of it.
His sessions were sprinkled with stories from his personal and professional life and, somehow, all radiated from a point that he had in mind and returned to imprint that in ours.
The appropriate use of language, bodily and verbal, the breaking of social, mental and emotional conditioning for self-growth and the need to acquire a strong will to make the required changes were brought home in the most irregular manner. Never was a Tai Chi class so abstract.
Introspection, identifying fears, worries, anxieties, weaknesses, demolition of ego and combative questions, building of self-esteem, all were grist to the mill of the existential question 'who are you?'
Volunteers, willing or inducted, became the subject of the grilling. Hats off to Anuradha, Kanchan, Kiran, Preeti, Narayan and Sanjay, who were the grain between the relentless grinding stones. दो पाटों के बीच, साबित बचा न कोई ... observers included. One immediate, significant outcome was that Gerry shared how, in his life, he had managed to succeed only because he had made Fear his friend.
This was not all. The abstract combined with the physical and we were encouraged to attempt new, but better controlled movement, the need to focus within, on our own pace, and not use our peripheral vision to imitate the pace of others around us. Singing by our friends was the music we danced to and Rakesh 'conducted' us through a Form.
This camp will stand out in memory and I think I can say that some good accrued to all.
Thank you Lazarus Sir! Thank you Rakesh.

Posted by Abha Sah

Rakesh has gone off, all the best to him, to trek up Mount Kilimanjaro. What an experience it will be.
In the meantime, classes continue. Yesterday, Sunday the 19th, the shy Albert Matthews conducted class.
He led us through three completely new routines, all Qi Gong. Activating the stem cells fascinated most of us, I think, not only because of the colour and visualisation involved, but more because the bamboo broom jangled melodiously while it slapped against the skin.
Dreams of suppressed violence surfaced in some eyes!
It was a good, long session rounded off by the form.
Thank you Albert.
From Abha Sah on behalf of all who were at Saraswati Vidyalaya.

Every one is happy when Energy is around, some meditates in Vertical position, some Horizontally.. this is a regular practioner(the one lying down) in my class from some months...

My Taichi/Qigong class at Nariman point..

Microcosmic meditation today, during the phase of Amavasya, in our Taichi class..