On the Saturday and Sunday of March 31st and April 1st 2001, the second annual residential seminar for the Five Winds School of Tai Chi Chuan was held at Riccarton Campus, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh. The event was well attended again, with around 80 students gathering for the training, including a few who could only make it for one day. As before, each day consisted of six hours of intensive training. Sifu Cameron supervised and co-ordinated the teaching, assisted by Tadek Klasicki, Sally Munro, Philippa Hope, Adrian Martinez, Andreas Schöter and Alan Coady. The weekend began with everyone joining in a short sequence of warm up exercises. These included the traditional Wudang Wave Hands in Clouds exercise (shown below), Tiger Yawning, and a number of others.   The teaching of beginners was done in small groups, depending on what stage in the forms each person was at. This gives students a chance to meet people at the same stage from other classes and to study with a different teacher, thus potentially gaining a new perspective on their practice. Here, Sally Munro goes through Grasping Bird's Tail with some beginners (above) and Andreas Schöter leads a group through As If Shutting a Door (below). The intensive nature of the weekend gives an opportunity for substantial progress in form work. Much of the weekend was devoted to the various forms of partner work. In particular, the different styles of pushings hands in the system were reviewed.   There are eight different styles of pushing hands in the Wudang system, ranging from simple single handed exercises, through static double handed patterns, then exercises introducing footwork with varying degrees of complexity, finally culminating in free style. Here we see some people practicing the basic double handed pattern known as Four Directions. In this photo, Tadick Klasicki (right) practices the style known as Seven Stars with a student. This style introduces one of the basic stepping techniques for evasion.   There are a large number of self-defence applications that can be practiced from within the basic Four Directions pushing hands pattern. In the following photos we see Sifu Cameron demonstrating a number of them on Jim Weatherston.   These two photographs show basic uprooting of the opponent. The basic idea is to take advantage of any slight weakness in you opponent's stance to uproot him as he attempts to push forward.   In the left-most photograph we see an example of diverting the opponent's attack. Sifu Cameron leads the energy of Jim's attack harmlessly to the side. In the right-most photo, once he has diverted the attack, Sifu Cameron counters using an elbow stroke to the ribs. Overall, the weekend provides an excellent opportunity for students to come and study and gain first hand experience of Sifu Cameron's art. It also allows Five Winds teachers from further afield the chance to refresh their skill and technique. Once again, thanks are due to Betty Sutherland for the initial organization of the weekend, with the final stages being taken on by Andreas Schöter and Fiona McIntyre.