6th TCFE Congress/Forum - France - July 2005

Chatenay Malbray, about an hour or so south of Paris was the venue for the 6th Annual Taijiquan & Qigong Federation for Europe's Congress Forum which, aside from the allimportant General Meeting, includes a ranage of workshops, lectures, demonstrations and discussion groups looking at some of the many aspects of internal arts. Our hosts this year were the FTCCG (Federation De Tai Chi Chuan Chi Gong) who, under the auspices of Mdme. Anya Meot, one of the long standing Committee Members of both organisations (TCFE & FTCCG) and her collective assistants took charge of booking the instructors, venue, food, entertainment and all that such a prestigious event entails.

The event was staged in a campus with impressive outdoor working space set in large green open space amid lush woodlands and a manmade lake. Being in France the food was as expected, healthy and nutritious with plenty of salad, fruit and healthy meats with a good choice for the vegetarians too.

Socially there could have been problems with an early closing bar but with the pleasant weather and fine French wines people soon found their way to mingle, meet old friends and find new ones.

Given that the original concept of this event was to create interaction and sharing between European practitioners the 6th event certainly went some way to fulfi lling this early promise. With an incredible 27 instructors on hand from 11 countries there was much on offer for the 100 or so participants who attended over the course of the week. They included: Karin Amerger (Austria), Maria Nedelcheva (Bulgaria), Arieh Breslaw & Annat Errol (Israel), Fang Chen (Sweden), Dan Docherty & Ronnie Robinson (UK), Aleksey Galish (Latvia), Cornelia Gruber (Swizerland), Joel Jappain (Spain), Nils Klug & Helmut Oberlack (Germany), Andrey Serednyakov & Alexander Kosminyk (Russia), Lac Le My, Antoine Ly, Anya Meot , Christain Bernapel, Daniel Millescamps, Marianne Plouvier, Phillipe Grange, George Saby, Jean Terriere, Michael Thabourin, Kar Fung Wu, Zhou Jing Hong & Stephen Zimmer (all France) & Vit Votja (Czech Republic). As the event was staged in France, the French Federation for Taijiquan & Qigong, in the interest of fairness, allowed for a large number of French Instructors a teaching slot or two, hence the predominence of French teachers. The range of material being taught was similarly extensive with practitioners from all the major tai chi styles, Yang, Sun, Wu, Chen, Tung, Chen Manching and Competition Routines covering a range of subjects like push hands, applications, sword, stick, fan and tai chi ruler. In addition to this participants could also train in Bagua, both hand and weapon forms, and a number of qigong methods including 8 Broocade, Dynamic Qigong, Zhineng & Crane. Helmut Oberlack also introduced the increasingly popular Taiji Ball which aside from requiring adherence to tai chi priniples actually provided much fun for those who took part.

Over the course of the week the weather was predominently fair without being too hot which meant that all the seminars could be enjoyed in the open, fresh surroundings of the woodland park.

In addition to the physical work our minds were also suitably stimulated by the lecture and discussion programme which included: "How to Judge a Competition" Fang Chen, "The Original Chinese Texts" Vit Votja, "Chinese Beliefs and Superstitions" Jean Tierre and "Tradition and Evolution in Chinese Internal Arts" George Saby.

Midweek we were treated to a display of Shuaijiao by a group of Parisian practitioners who arrived with their Master who was over from China. The demos were lively and exhilarating allowing most of those in attendance to see an aspect of Chinese martial arts they perhaps hadn't previously experienced.

The final day saw a series of impressive displays by the various instructors which again included elements of the arts rarely seen. On show was Chen style as shown by Vit Votja, Andrey Serednyakov and Aleksey Galish, Bagua Annat Errol, weapon applications, Dan Docherty & Luce Condamine, an impressive competition by Maria Nedelcheva and her young students from their native Bulgaria, Fan Form, Cornelia Gruber along with various hand forms by French teachers of various styles.

The General Meeting of the Taijiquan & Qigong Federation for Europe took place on the final day which also allowed for the election of the new Executive Committee: President: Dan Docherty, Vice President: Anya Meot, Chairman: Nils Klug, Vice Chairman: Albert Yefi mov, Secretary: Ronnie Robinson, Treasurer: Cornelia Gruber and the Exexutive Committee: Paul Silverstralle, Begonia Revenga, Marianne Plouvier & Vit Votja.