A quiet day to practice and to be, no better way to fill the heart with joy.

The New T'ai Chi term has just begun and I've been pondering on the benefits of practice. What can you expect when practice becomes part of your life. Look forward to befriending your body finding where it is soft and relaxed and where you are holding tension. Recognising tension is the first step in letting it go, the slow gentle T'ai Chi movements encourage the muscles to soften and relax. Moving with grace and beauty lifts the spirits and enlivens the mind. Learning to use ones peripheral vision opens us to the world and the world to us many new ways. And that's just the beginning.

Key functions and features of your brain

It's shaped by evolution: the main genetic differences between humans and chimpanzees focus on the brain , particularly its social, emotional, linguistic and conceptual abilities

3 pounds, 1.1 trillion cells, including a hundred billion "grey matter" neurons

Always "on": 2% of the body's weight uses about 25% of its oxygen

Average neuron has about 1,000 connections (synapses), a hundred trillion in all

Synapses firing 1 to 100 times a second

Regions linked by brain waves synchronised within a few seconds

Extremely interconnected network full of circular loops

Number of possible brain states: 1 followed by a million zeros

An organ that learns from experiences through life long changes in its structure

The most complex object known in the universe

Reading this in " Measuring the Immeasurable" filled my heart with wonder and joy.

West Cork stunning today !

Pushing Hands and Uprooting no more enjoyable start to a new year of T'ai Chi for me!