Good day all, It will be a few days before I am on again as we are leaving on a motor home trip and that requires a lot of work moving clothes, food, and necessary items from the house to the coach fridge, cabinets, and storage spaces. An interesting point about 'freestyle' Tai Chi was brought up yesterday and I had been lamenting to my wife about losing a few days of my scheduled practice as we travel over the next few days to warmer weather. Au contraire, as I made multiple trips from house to coach carrying totes and boxes, I found myself naturally falling into the discipline of Tai Chi walking with even more focus on maintaining balance and form over uneven ground and the steps and stairs along my path. So after my warmup, I was able to incorporate 25 minutes of TC Walking into the part of my day that I had expected to keep me from completing that. Pretty satisfying. Be well all.

As a retired person, I like to say that I have tomorrow off, from now on. So every 'Today' is a day for me to engage in all the study and activities that I sidelined for many years of my life in pursuit of these days off. My thought for anyone reading this is to not waste any time. Retire to having 'Tomorrow off; as soon as you can

I need some guidance on something here: before joining RA, I developed something, admittedly as a nube, which I'll call "Free Style" Tai Chi. But that I mean movements done very gently, with an eye towards meditation rather than physical culture, done very informally. Typically this would be a gentle use of Horse Stance and Ocean Stepping with some upper body movements pivoting at the hips, which start out formal and which I then improvise, almost as a kind of expressive dance: Horse's Mane and Dragon in the Clouds works well here. Is this good practice? I can see the advantages as a form of relaxation and meditation in motion; on the other hand I can see how it could lead me into bad or counterproductive habits by negating the focus and (self-) discipline beginners need. Any advice most appreciated.

This is a very basic question that I'm sure must've been answered before somewhere here, but: what does one do to shore up emerging practice routines if one becomes ill? I don't mean anything serious, but especially colds and the myriad other viruses that circulate in, for example, the very damp, wet, and cool weather one gets nowadays in winter in southern England (climate change: in my lifetime I've witnessed it shift from cold, snow, and ice to warm and wet). When one is starting out on a practice path, this can mess things up. Here, BTW, is Cuckmere Meander, a local beauty spot near where I live between the White Cliffs that mark the edge of South Downs National Park meandering to the sea. I can't wait to practice there in the open as Spring dries out the mud!

Hope all are doing well, just a check in posting...................We are in the midst of the storm, 10 inches of snow, record low temps, making suet for the birds. My wife has her own recipe for that. Progressing on the journey. My sessions are every other day, except for the 'Do this every day' warm up that I do every day, currently on the scheduled full workout days I begin with the warmup, then 20 minutes of 'Ice Walking', all over the house, to my bride' s constant amusement, then '10 Minute Qi Gong', finishing with Tai Chi 'Start with 5 Movements'. Next week the plan is to continue with the daily warmup while increasing the time for Ice Walking and expand both Qi Gong and Tai Chi form sessions with longer sessions of each for the 'every other day' sessions. Good wishes to all