Aquavenice 2008
Saturday 16 August 2008 at 1:31 pm In early August 2008 I travelled once again to Venice, Italy as a guest of Franco Mescola for his annual Aquavenice event. After arriving in Venice we travelled on the local boat taxi to the nearby island of St Erasmo and then a 15 minute walk to the centre where the event was being staged.Aquavenice runs over two long weekends, one 'Yin' and one 'Yang' focussing primarily on qigong and tuishou/applications aside from the ongoing general training of Franco's students. The other teachers included Sue Woodd, Gianni Grapelli, of Switzerland, Marianne Plouvier from Paris and, of course, Franco himself. Franco and Sue I had just left a couple of weeks ago, as teachers at my annual Tai Chi Caledonia event in the heart of Scotland. Gianni was teaching at Aquavenice last year but I hadn't seen Marianne for some years. She was an ex-collegue from the Taijiquan & Qigong Federation for Europe and it was delightful to spend time in her company once more.
St Erasmo is a beautiful island with good food, lovely weather and excellent beaches. Franco offers a comprehensive training programme which, although focussed primarily for his students offers much for any practioner of tai chi or chi kung. Whilst I was there Marianne taught San Shou, Franco taught spiralling energy work, and Gianni and i taught push hands and applications. We worked outdoors in the shade of olive trees with a pleasant cooling breeze. The food was good, the conditions were excellent and the food and wine was delicious. Not a bad job sometimes!
A fuller report will appear at: Chiron Tai Chi website
