Hibernating Bear Tai Chi

Moving Gracefully with your Baseline

'Hibernating Bear' centres around instructor Nicola's ethos to make traditional Tai Chi and Qigong available to students of all abilities. Dynamic slow movements and breath work designed for those who wish to be active in their health care management. For those living with chronic health, degenerative health and different base lines than the norm. Instructor Nicola has distilled her studies and practice of the Classical Chinese arts over the last 17 years, to pass on the most effective methods for improving health and wellbeing.

A bear knows instinctively when to rest and rejuvenate, and when the winter is over he knows when it is time to be active again. It is all about balance, following the natural ebb and flow in life and responding to changes with grace. Instructor Nicola follows the modern Taoist principles as guided by her teacher Casey Kochmer of www.personaltao.com, those being kindness, modesty and non-judgement. Her lessons follow these principles, where she helps students improve their quality of life through movement and stillness, with compassion and validation of you as a unique individual.

Nicola has a well honed friendly and approachable teaching style, and is able to adapt her teachings to suit, often knowing instinctively what will be of benefit, no matter of her lesson plan! She is a great communicator, imparting her knowledge clearly and effectively.

Our Hibernating Bear classes

What makes up a Hibernating Bear Tai Chi lesson?

How to exercise and manage your individual physical and health baseline with grace
Gentle loosening exercises to warm the body
Relaxing deep breathing and soft movement techniques to calm the mind
Standing, sitting and lying down stillness and meditation practice
Find out what qi gong means
Qigong movements
Chen style Tai Chi exercises
Acceptance through the absence of resistance, the meaning of true physical relaxation
The automatic stress and relaxation response
How to breath correctly for all round health and wellbeing (diaphragmatic breathing)
Movements that encourage joint rotation, expansion and compression
Muscle and soft tissue flexibility, strength, unity and elasticity
Physical symmetry, posture and alignment in class and daily life
The importance of body awareness
Balance, stability and grounding
Detoxing through movement
Reduce stress and mental tension
Exercising and management of chronic fatigue
Tools to aid anxiety and depression
The mind and body connection
Movement and stillness for chronic pain management
Reframing and lessening the pain experience
Compassion training
Learn how to progressively to build up to a regular exercise practice and the importance of frequency
The importance of not pushing passed your body's tolerance, to avoid extremes and train moderately at 70-80% (ebb and flow)

N.B. This is not tuition where you will learn a Tai Chi routine or a qigong set. The focus is on Tai Chi movements, drills and exercises for health and wellbeing. Especially correcting and maintaining physical alignment, with deep muscular / soft tissue /joint movements and diaphragmatic breathing.

Instructor Nicola’s Experience

Your teacher, Nicola lives with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, a chronic degenerative condition. Her experience of chronic pain, chronic fatigue and physical restriction has given her a unique insight into training and teaching Tai Chi and Qigong movement arts. She has trained the practices personally since 2006 and has worked with the ebb and flow of chronic health since then. She has trained many students with a differing base line than the norm, both in private tuition in the home, through her live online classes.