Mondays, 7 - 8.30pm
HJL Dream Space, Resource for London, 352 Holloway Road, London, N7 6PA
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As an ‘internal’ martial art, Tai Chi teaches practitioners to better live inside their bodies, to better regulate responses to external stimuli, and to harness the potential of relaxation and softening of the body. It builds practitioners’ connectedness with their own bodies, and nourishes the connection between mind, body and spirit.
For people struggling against oppression, Tai Chi provides emotional grounding, taking practitioners out of the headspace where the emotional tension and stress of oppression dominate our consciousness. It moves us out of that headspace into a body/breath/spirit space where we become mindful, connecting to our whole body and to the Earth through our feet.
The martial essence of Tai Chi is in yielding with softness and relaxation. Within the yielding softness is a core of strength which emanates from the Earth, through our feet and legs, and is able to overcome opponents size and strength advantage. Relaxation and rootedness allows us to remain centred, balanced and strong while the opponents aggression becomes their weakness. We can apply these principles to the struggle against oppression. Unlike many martial arts, Tai Chi nourishes the body and spirit, instead of wearing out the joints and causing injury.
If you require additional access measures to enable your participation please email info@healingjusticeldn.org. Inline with our commitment to disability justice, we will try to accommodate as much as possible.
We want to make this space as safe and accessible as possible, including for people with compromised immune systems and other underlying health conditions. Please take a COVID test before coming and avoid attending if symptomatic. We encourage people to practice community care by wearing masks and respect each other’s personal space. Masks will be available in the space.
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Sessions are held by Jalal Afhim (he/him). Jalal has been practising Tai Chi and Qigong since he began learning in China in 2005. He is also a trainer and career coach, and brings a pedagogy of self-actualisation into his practice as @Kahina_Resists. He brings lived experience of navigating institutional slow violence into this work, forming connections with the experiences of participants.
