Tai Chi Classes in Lewes
Developing relaxation, connection and whole-body movement through systematic practice.
My Tai Chi teaching is based on the training methods transmitted through Huang Sheng-Shyan and my teacher, Wee Kee-Jin.
The aim is not simply to learn a sequence of movements. The form provides a framework through which we learn to relax unnecessary tension, settle the body, improve alignment and balance, and gradually develop greater internal connection.
Students begin with clear external principles - how to stand, shift the weight and organise the body and progressively learn to recognise and work with what is happening internally.
Training develops over time. As the basic principles become more familiar, the emphasis moves from learning what to do towards understanding how the body is working while you do it.
Tuesday Evenings
5.30pm - 6.30pm
Wednesday & Friday Evenings
5.30pm - 6.30pm
Saturday Mornings 10:00 - 11:00
About the Space
The Training Hall is a quiet, studio based at the Lewes Subud Centre on Talbot Terrace. It’s warm, calm, and used only for practice - not shared with other classes.
If it’s raining outside, there’s no waiting area, but you can arrive a few minutes early and come straight in.
How the Training Develops
Beginners establish the foundations through the Kickstarter programme. Continuing students progressively develop the form and principles in greater depth. More experienced training introduces increasingly refined work with relaxation, sinking, connection, partner work and the internal mechanics underlying the form.
What We Work On
This is where your existing material about weight distribution, relaxing the joints, sinking into the feet, coordination and whole-body movement belongs.
Form and Principles
Explain that the form isn't choreography to be collected. It is the vehicle through which the principles are trained. Your existing “You won't be expected to copy movements or memorise long forms” is too absolute because, ultimately, they plainly are learning a form.
Partner Training
This is conspicuously missing from the current page and should now be here if we're presenting the actual training system. It gives you somewhere to explain partner exercises/testing, sensitivity, maintaining structure under interaction, etc., without turning the page into a technical treatise.
Continuing Your Training
Learning the movements is only the beginning of Tai Chi practice.
Once the basic sequence and principles have become familiar, there is progressively more opportunity to work on the quality of the movement itself — reducing unnecessary muscular effort, allowing the body to settle, maintaining alignment while moving and developing greater connection through the whole body.
Over time, students learn to recognise more clearly when the body is divided or tense and when movement is genuinely connected. The same principles are explored repeatedly through the form, standing practice, individual exercises and, as appropriate, partner work.
This means that the training does not simply consist of learning more and more movements. Familiar movements become the means through which increasingly subtle aspects of the practice can be investigated.
Students who have completed the introductory training can continue through the regular classes, developing the form and principles progressively at a level appropriate to their experience.
VIEW CLASSES & PRIVATE TUITION
Individual Training
Private tuition is available for students who would like more individual attention or who want to work in greater detail on particular aspects of their practice.
One-to-one and one-to-two sessions allow more time to examine posture, movement and the underlying principles, and can be useful both for people beginning Tai Chi and for existing students wanting to explore their training more closely.
Getting Started
Classes run weekly during term time. Spaces are limited, so booking is essential.
You can book a class here, or get in touch if you have questions.
Who It’s For
Tai Chi can be practised by people of different ages, backgrounds and levels of physical ability. You don’t need previous experience, particular flexibility or a high level of fitness to begin.
What matters more is a willingness to practise regularly, pay attention and allow the principles to develop gradually.
Some people initially come to Tai Chi because they want to improve their balance, coordination or quality of movement. Others are interested in relaxation and becoming less physically tense. Some are simply curious about Tai Chi and want to understand what lies behind the movements.
Whatever brings you to the practice, the training itself follows the same underlying principles. Rather than teaching Tai Chi as a collection of exercises for particular problems, I teach a progressive system through which you learn to recognise and change how you organise and use your body.
As your experience develops, the emphasis increasingly shifts from copying external movements towards understanding and feeling the principles within them.
New to Tai Chi?
If you have no previous experience, the Beginners Kickstarter programme provides a structured introduction to the basic movements and principles.
Where to find us
Lewes Tai Chi (School of Central Equilibrium)
Lewes Subud Centre (Previously Lewes New School)
Talbot Terrace
Lewes
BN7 2DS
Mob: 07477 865 874
Email: taichi@esaiashobbs.com