Summer Course 2008
Have you been Scarborough Fayre? We have.
This year the Summer Course was in Scarborough, from the 25th July till the 2nd August. It was a very successful course with around 100 people attending in total including 8 from Stafford. The Summer Course is a long standing annual event in the Lau-Gar calendar as it has been running for 32 years now. It has been held in many different places across the country including Tenby, Torquay, St. Andrews and Llandudno; however the majority have been in Scarborough.
The timetable of each day started with a run bright and early at 7.00 a.m. (don’t let that put you off if you haven’t been before). The distance of each run gradually increased each day starting from around 2 miles and increasing to approximately 5. Some of the braver runners did even more if they felt they had the energy. The first day involved running up to the South Cliff car-park which had an extremely steep hill to get up to it. The theme of uphill running continued throughout the week as the route progressed to going up Oliver’s Mount, looping around it and then coming back down. As you can imagine many locals were probably woken up and scared by what would have felt like an eternity of runners going past their doors at seven in the morning! The run was organised by Stafford’s very own Paul Sabin and he created his own marker system to guide people around the run involving happy volunteers wearing stunning, bright yellow t-shirts with a number on their backs. The last run was the biggest and most gruelling of them all and to congratulate and show support to each other every runner was clapped in as they finished.
After a quick breakfast the training started at 10.00 and went on till 2.00. The session started off with warm-up exercises and then was followed by movements lead by Morag Quirk. The first was the 8 brocades, also known as ‘Bac Durn Gum’, which is a series of eight exercises to improve health and internal strength. The next was a yoga exercise called ‘Salute to the Sun’. This involves a sequence of movements from different yoga positions; - upwards/downwards facing dog, plank and warrior. Next was stance training, which many of you might recognise some of them from the Lau-Gar sets. The stances included horse riding, hanging and bow and arrow. They are designed to improve balance, posture and strengthen the legs and as many may know they hurt a lot after the morning run! At approximately 11.00 we moved on to learning about the 8 powers and 16 techniques with John Russell. These movements form the basis for the vast majority of everything we do in Lau-Gar and we were learning their applications, variations and their Chinese names. We were also given the freedom to play around with different techniques and by the end of the week pairs of students did demos of at least 5 different movements in front of the whole class. After that was the syllabus hour, which is very similar to what we do on a Wednesday night. Students were separated out into groups of the same grades and taught by a different black sash instructor each day, coming from clubs all across the country. At the end of this hour we did stretches and kicking combinations with Andrew Nation followed by various walking techniques with Keith Thomas. Then we did lots of the world famous Shaolin Temple stamps exercise. Finally we ended the session with Jarm Jong meditation which involved focusing on developing energy/chi circulation in different standing positions.
At the end of all the running and training each day many of us went back to our accommodations for lots of food and sleep. But there were also organised events on some of the evenings. On each Summer Course there is a Wednesday evening barbeque, which is organised by different club representatives every year. This year’s turn was the Irish group who did a very good job in ordering the food, taking the money and cooking the meals. The barbeque was at Seamer Campsite, just outside Scarborough town centre. Everyone who attends always enjoys it and obviously a few beverages are normally consumed!
Speaking of drinking, on the Friday evening of each year there is an end of the week celebration to mark the end of another Summer Course. This time it was at the Villa Esplanade Bar, funnily enough it is situated along the Scarborough Esplanade. Some people stayed out later than others (not naming names!) but some went back to sleep for the last day of training on the Saturday morning. There was no run on the last day and the training is always shorter to give time for packing and the presentations. Everybody who attended received a certificate and students from beginners to orange sash also progressed to the next grade. Everybody claps each other as they go up to collect their certificates from Master Yau to show support for each other for what they have achieved.
Before I finish I have to mention that on the Tuesday night a few people from the Stafford group took part in a pub quiz at a place called The Cask. Surprisingly enough we won, beating the locals and the Scottish posse! We may have been the biggest team by far but who cares!
Seriously though the Summer Course is a brilliant week as you work hard, learn a lot and enjoy yourself. Hopefully next year there will be some new faces attending to join in with the regular die-hards.
Next year's summer course will be based around the Lau Gar Two Man Form, so book your hotel now.
This year Stafford had a good turn out at the summer course and we even adopted a member for the week in the form of Gabby .
The Stafford Lau Gar posse pose with Master Yau
(left to right: Alec, Gil, Gabby, Ben, Master Yau, Jason, Alan, Gary and Pete)
Words: Jason Hornby
Picture: Pete Hornby
