Feedback from 3N's

[Marcus]

Hello everyone,

I'd like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to everyone for making the first 3 Nations Gathering in Brighton such an incredible success. Special thanks to:

My Sifu, without your generosity, compassion and teaching none of this would be possible. Thankyou from my heart.

Sifu Jordan Francis: Thankyou for giving us all a living breathing example of Shaolin Law no. 4. I now have a new defination of the word Courage. Thankyou for getting me safely to and from Brighton and for your and Catherines wonderful hospitality.

Sifu Michael Durkin: Thankyou for carrying my flipchart around the streets of Brighton and for giving me a so much fun watching people trying to rotate their arms in opposite directions!

Sifu Tim Franklin: Thankyou for preparing me to experience one of the best after Zhan Zhuang chi flows I've had in ages and for bringing so many of your students to the gathering.

Sifu Joan Browne: Thankyou for such excellent notes and the story about the dog digging the hole on the beach had everyone laughing! I liked this point so much that I'd like to restate it here for the benefit of everyone:

Be kind and generous in your dealings with all people. This advice has been given by many great chi kung masters in history. Because our universe is intricately and organically interconnected, being kind and generous to others will result in being kind and generous to yourself.

Sifu Emiko Hsuen: Thankyou for your inspiration and ideas on how to make Sifu Jordan's talk have more of an impact. Your input helped make it a great success.

Assistant Simon Brooks: Thankyou for having the idea for this event in the first place, I hope your faith in such events is restored . Thankyou to you and Laura for your generous hospitality.

Everyone's a winner.

Assistant Mark Tranter: Thankyou for stepping into fray at such short notice and giving a blindingly good presentation and thankyou for sharing the fruit of your Master brewing skills with me .

Assistant Jamie Robson: Thankyou for travelling so far for such a short space of time to participate in this event. I deliberately sat out to watch your presentation and all I can say is that your Sifu is fortunate to have you as student.

Assistant Innes Maran: Thankyou for being vacuum packed in a National Express bus for 14 hours to share your presentation with the group. I'm sorry I missed it, but I heard great feedback from the students.

A huge thankyou to all of the students who attended the Gathering. Thankyou for allowing me to take some risks in my presentation in order to stretch myself and grow in my confidence of public speaking. Your smiles, laughs and contributions were gratefully received by me. Special mention to Paul Devlin for joining us all the way from the Republic of Ireland. Give my regards to Vince and Paschal next time you see them.

Finally: The next Gathering (which hopefully could be the 4N's, what do you think Hubert?) will be held in Manchester. I look forward to meeting you there

Kindest regards

Marcus
P.S here's a picture of some of us enjoying Sunday morning breakfast on the sea front at Brighton. One of the happiest mornings of my life.

Namo Amitabha Buddha Namo Amitabha Buddha Namo Amitabha Buddha

[barrys]

Great to meet some old friends and put faces to the names of new ones.

I had a great time being a novice doing the combat sequences. Practising Tai Chi Chuan and then coming to Kung Fu is an interesting experience. Learning lots about what I can and can't do, do and don't know. I don't get much of a chance to practice the Kung Fu patterns with others, but when I do it really brings them to life - the potential fierceness of the tiger claw and the importance of Lohan asks the way .

Thank you to all of the instructors for sharing your experience. I got something out of all of the sessions. Only sorry I couldn't be there for Sunday but family duties called.

Very useful to focus back on aims and objectives. I try to do this regularly anyway but I got a new slant on it during the day. "What lights my fire?", "What inspires me to take action and practice?". Great questions and helped me to really focus. I realise that having the ability to physically defend myself isn't really high on my list. It comes as a secondary gain for me, something that comes along with the package . So, for me it is: living a life of vitality; being a great therapist, father, husband and friend; being loving and kind even when it is difficult. These things light me up and the more I realise it the more I see opportunities to live them. Now I need to reflect and get help in looking at what best to practice to achieve them.

Thanks to everyone who made the weekend possible,

Barry

[Jordan]

What a fantastic post

Marcus, your presentation(s) were top notch. Very impressive, I never imagined I could become jealous of a man with a flipchart... damn you :P

Thanks again for your help. Ah... breakfast on the seaside...


Also, I must thank Simon and Laura for their hospitality as well. It was a fun and interesting night

I would also like to thank all who attended. It was a pleasure to see so many faces both old and new, teaching and learning. You are all shining examples of why we practise our Shaolin Arts. Give yourselfs a pat on the back!




I personally learned a great deal from my experiences and hope to see you all again in Manchester!

[Simon]

More thanks to everyone involved, those who planned, taught and attended. It was so good to see students from throughout the UK come together to train and socialise. I really enjoyed meeting all those new faces and I hope to see you all again soon.

I'll post some photo's tonight.Our combined internal force must have been making the caretaker's hand shake when he took the group shot as it is a little blurred, but not to worry.

This kind of event shows the good development of Shaolin Wahnam in the UK and I'm sure that by this time next year we will be even stronger both in terms of numbers and experience.

Regards

Simon

[Alberto]

Flipchar?

Could someone please tell me what is a "flipchart". I did not find that word in my english dictionary

[Marcus]

Hello Alberto,

A flip chart is a convenient way of presenting written material to a medium sized group of people. It consists of an A1 sized board, supported on 3 legs, about 1 metre off the ground. On this board are sheets of A1 sized pieces of paper that presenters can write on, to demonstrate/emphasis certain parts of their presentation.

Even better, I will take a picture of one (I have several) and post it later

Kind regards

Marcus

[Jordan]

Flipping mad..

Even better, I will take a picture of one (I have several) and post it later

Kind regards

Marcus

Noooo!...

[Innes]

Thanks to everyone

A wonderful weekend. It was nice to come down and be so warmly recieved and have a fun time.

Definatly a good event for the future.

Good to see everyone and meet those new faces.
Thanks Simon for the meal and directions and thanks to everyone who took part.

See you all soon


Best wishes

[Marcus]

As promised, a picture of a flipchart

Kind regards

Marcus

Namo Amitabha Buddha Namo Amitabha Buddha Namo Amitabha Buddha

[Simon]

Who was it telling me over the weekend to take things more seriously?

[Tim]

Thank you Marcus for organising and coming up with such a truly wonderful and heart warming weekend.

Thank you Simon for organising the venue and making our sets such fun. Thank you also for your orchestral input.

Thanks to all the teachers and students that made this weekend so much fun to teach and participate in, I look forward to seeing more than a flip chart with all the great videos and photos that were taken.

Roll on Manchester 4 Nations?

Kind thoughts and wishes to you all.

Tim

[Jamie Robson]

Dear all

The 3 Nation's was an excellent event. The whole feeling of the weekend was one of fun and friendship.

Thank you to everyone involved and I look forward to the next one.

Best Wishes

[Mark T]

I'd also like to thank everyone who taught and to all the students who attended, you all worked very hard and did us proud.
Whilst I help teach class twice a week, having the opportunity to take a large group for 90 minutes was fantastic - I personally got a lot out of it.
Once again, thanks to all the other instructors and assistant instructors, I loved every session!

Warmest regards to all.
Mark

[Nick Jones]

Dear All

I would like to add my thankyous for what was an awesome experience! I had great fun all weekend! It was lovely to meet so many Wahnam brothers, sisters and instructors and I feel my practice will improve greatly as a result of this weekend!

I would also just like to add special thanks to:

Simon and Laura for their hospitality and Simon's memorable quotes

Marcus Sipak for his organisational dexterity and for a number of kind words over the weekend. It is a wonderful feeling to be complimented by someone you look up to!

Sifu(Jordan) For sharing the Shaolin arts with me! I reached a new understanding of the reponsibility it must be to teach these arts this weekend!

Finally I would like to thank all the instructors and assistants who shared their knowledge!

Ah... breakfast on the seaside...

but where were the mushrooms Sifu?

and a note to self: digest cod and chips before stance training or

Nick

[Simon]

photos

As promised...