Instructor
Learning Tai Chi Qi Gong is an internal journey, where others can only point you in the right direction. There are many paths, and everyone has their own speed and method of moving forward.
A good teacher will be able to encourage you with this and make the path a little clearer.
Although experience in practice and teaching is essential in an instructor, when finding a teacher it is equally important for students to figure out if the teacher’s teaching style and their way of communication is helpful in understanding what you are learning.
Tai Chi Qi Gong is not something you can learn in a day, and its concepts and practices are initially rather foreign or strange to Western-trained minds, therefore students are advised to seek both ease of communication, and a continuous challenge of their understanding of mind-body practice.
Isabelle Kandler
Picture: Isabelle demonstrates White Crane Brushes Knee
Isabelle has been training in LAMAS Tai Chi Qigong for twenty-two years.
She has been teaching courses, seminars and private classes in Tai Chi Qi Gong for over ten years, and was an assistant instructor for several years before that.
In June 2011, she was awarded Master Grade in LAMAS Qigong. She has completed the instructor training course, and has students who are now teaching or assisting.
Her main instructors in LAMAS Tai Chi Qi Gong are Senior Instructor Richard Williams (Swindon, UK) and Grandmaster Adrian Lowe (UK and USA), the lineage holder and heir of the style.
Picture of part of the Great Wall of China, 2018
To further her professional development, Isabelle attends regular yearly workshops with Bruce Frantzis (Energy Arts, USA) and his student Gio Maschio (UK) to develop the more internal aspects of her qigong, neigong and meditation practice; and intensive Training Courses with He Jinbao (Beijing, China), in Yin Style Bagua Zhang, to focus on the soft internal martial arts aspect of the use of energy.
Isabelle recently returned from a training and cultural trip to China, where she trained at Chen Village in Chen style Tai Chi and standing practice. She does not teach any of these styles to date.
Picture of kung fu students posing
Isabelle also teaches Tiger Style Kung Fu (see links), which she has trained for twenty years. Tiger Kung Fu is an external martial art, and it links in with the five animals taught in LAMAS Qi Gong for internal wellbeing. All these five animals unify into dragon, becoming the yin and yang of the style through the tiger and the dragon.
Generally, the martial aspect of the internal art is only taught as a point of interest in Tai Chi Qi Gong classes. Several students therefore study both the internal Tai Chi Qi Gong, and the external Tiger Kung fu. (To link to Classic Tiger Kung Fu, click here.)
Recently, Isabelle has been collaborating with the Confucius Institute at Brookes University (One World Week, and China Day), and with Go Active Oxfordshire, and school China Days.
Isabelle teaching at the Brookes One World Week in 2019
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