Gung Hay Fat Choy - Happy Lunar New Year

Congratulations to Kiala Lujan, the newest Tien Shan Pai Black Sash of Body Balance Academy.

And xie xie to all the student performers and their families and friends who attended this year's celebration on Saturday night. What a show!

Let us know if you made movies or took pictures of the performances. We'd love to share them on the Body Balance Facebook page. And we'd love to hear your comments about the show. 

A wonderful way to begin the Year of the Yang Wood Horse.

Workshop with Shih Fu Nicholas Hancock Feb 1

Tien Shan Pai Legacy Arts Workshop

Saturday Feb 1 

11:30-1:00

with

Shih Fu Nicholas Hancock and Shih Fu Eileen Hancock

Self defense | Health & Healing

 Effortless Application | Longevity Techniques

Body Balance Students $45

General Public $50

Families 3rd attendee is FREE

Lotus and Leadership students FREE

Sign up at Body Balance Academy!

Chinese New Year Celebration Saturday Feb 1

Join us to celebrate

with

Music & Martials Arts

Saturday February 1

Doors open at 5:30

Show begins at 6PM

Featuring: Motoshi Kosako, Bill Douglass & Kit Bailey

Also performing DJ Papa Sight & Mesmerhythm

Tickets available at Body Balance Academy and BriarPatch Co-op

Children under 12 - $10

Show only - $15

Show, Dinner and After Party - $25

For Info/Tickets call 530-477-0677

Words of thanks, encouragement and inspiration from Body Balance instructors to our wonderful students

From the Instructors at Body Balance Academy:

"It is so wonderful to observe people appearing younger, stronger and more balanced.  The ancient art of Tai Chi Chuan lives on through each student, every breath.                                                                                   
- Shih Fu

"Wow, this Kung Fu team rocks... Finally, I can look at the forms and marvel at the quality of Kung Fu that Body Balance Academy offers to the lineage."
- Shih Fu

"Each student is reaching levels of their personal potential that is by far the best that I have seen yet in my career as an instructor." 
-  Shih Fu Summer

"Xie, Xie to all of the wonderful Body Balance Academy students who come together to create a community of chi. Your enthusiasm for these ancient arts of Tai Chi, Ba Gua, Qi Gong and Hsing Yi inspires me to become a better teacher."                                          
- Shih Fu Catherine

"Students forms are really starting to express the fluid, relaxed nature of chi."
 - Shih Fu Chris

"It is a pleasure to observe and participate in the deepening practice of Qi Gong and Tai Chi. This movement of energy relaxes, balances , and connects us individually and collectively."
- Shih Fu Tina

"It is so beautiful to see the students moving in harmony, like an ocean wave, breathing in breathing out. This is the Tao."
- Shih Fu Anya


"This team is all dedicated to proper training and the devotion to honoring the lineage. This attitude raises the quality of their martial arts and the standards of Body Balance Academy."         
- Shih Fu Steve

This year, set your goals higher than ever before and watch as you achieve them, with effortless motion.

Shih Fu Chris Hooley | Practicing All the Time

Chris Hooley studies energy. Five years ago his inquisitive mind led him to a Tai Chi class at Sierra College where he sought to deepen his understanding of energy. To explain, Chris quotes Bob Marley, “He who feels it, knows it."

Chris says he studied “everything” at Sierra College. But he quips, “They don’t have a degree in Everything. I did 4 years at all the Sierra Colleges and the University of Nevada, Reno.” During these studies he became dedicated to understanding energetics and spirituality.  

 

Through his studies at Body Balance he began to understand how memory works through the body, though physical sensations rather than through words or visual cues.  If you’ve ever been a student in one of Shih Fu Chris’ Tai Chi or yoga classes, you know that his approach to teaching is to fully embody the form. His goal is to transmit an experience of the postures and allow understanding to arise through experience.

“That’s the way that is most productive at this time in my life. There is a never-ending depth of knowledge and understanding about ourselves, and our environment. It’s like a book that never ends.”

Yoga allows him to feel “more comfortable in the body, more expanded in the body. And generates a greater awareness of the body.” In his own yoga practice, Chris says, “I have a basic set. If I'm mellow I'll stay on the floor the whole time. Each session is drawing on all the different things I’ve learned and whatever feels right in the moment.”

I asked Chris about his transition from Tai Chi practitioner to teacher. “I’ve always wanted to teach what I know and understand. I see myself as a teacher--relating knowledge in a personal, one-on-one style. You really learn about yourself and others through teaching. It (teaching) really teaches you a lot about what you think and feel you know.”

“What I’ve found to be a strength (in my teaching) is how I explain things. I’ve found a variety of ways to explain (the postures) from a lot of different angles.”

Chris recently participated in the 4th Annual 'Golden Gate" Chinese Martial Arts Championship. He competed in three categories: open hand (Yang Style Tai Chi), Tai Chi straight sword and push hands. “The tournament was a great experience. I won a silver medal in open hand style.  And three gold medals--one in straight sword and two in push hands. One of the very experienced judges recognized our traditional (Tien Shan Pai) push hands form and after the competition, he worked with me for 20-30 minutes.”

The unexpected push hands lesson was just another opportunity for Chris to study energy, this time with a practitioner from the same lineage with 30 years experience. He absorbed the lesson in the moment, incorporating the experience into his forms and his teaching.

When I asked Chris about his personal practice, he said, “I’ve always been a very unstructured free spirit; never liked routines. I utilize whatever practice is needed in the moment. Through internal awareness, I connect with breath and come back to center. Through this practice, I know when I need to come back into balance. It is an internal practice with the chi.”

 

Shih Fu Chris finds a natural balance that allows him to integrate practice with life and life with practice in a never-ending flow. Or as he describes it, “In life I try to do it all at once.  I try to merge it all in the moment.  It’s a continuous practice. I’m practicing all the time."

Fresh thoughts on the nature of heaven and earth

The Way never does anything,

and everything gets done.

If those in power could hold to the Way,

The ten thousand things

would look after themselves.

If even so they tried to act,

I'd quiet them with the nameless,

the natural.

In the unnamed, in the unshapen,

is not wanting.

In not wanting is stillness.

In stillness all under heaven rests.

-Tao Te Ching Chapter 37 version by Ursula Le Guin

Nature doesn't make long speeches.

A whirlwind doesn't last all morning.

A cloudburst doesn't last all day.

Who makes the wind and rain?

Heaven and earth do.

If heaven and earth don't go on and on,

certainly people don't need to.

The people who work with the Tao

are Tao people,

they belong to the Way.

People who work with power

belong to power.

People who work with loss

belong to what's lost.

Give yourself to the Way

and you'll be at home on the Way.

Give yourself to power

and you'll be at home in power.

Give yourself to loss

and when you're lost you'll be at home.

To give no trust

is to get no trust.

-Tao Te Ching Chapter 23 version by Ursula Le Guin

Holiday Studio Schedule

Planning ahead?  

Body Balance Academy will be CLOSED
on these Wednesdays:

December 25th, Christmas Day &

January 1, New Year's Day.

On these Tuesdays,
the 9am class will be for all levels.
There will be no evening classes on
December 24th, Christmas Eve Day &
December 31, New Year's Eve Day.
 

Count on us as a calm, quiet space
to help you balance

the rest of the holiday whirl. 

Join us for regular classes at all other times. 

Xie, xie.