At 24, Russell is towards the younger end of our student age range. He began his Tai Chi when he was 22. Although it’s not unusual for someone of that age to be attracted to the slowness and calmness of the art form, it is unusual to find such appreciation for the benefits of the meditation aspects.

Right from the beginning, he found the Qigong challenging and fascinating. At his first class, Russell’s feet became very hot and uncomfortable. The harder he tried to keep his concentration on the Dan Tian, the more his feet screamed at him. He found the whole process intriguing and wanted to get better at it. He hadn’t realised he had so much tension in his body because he had always thought of himself as a pretty relaxed kind of person. However, the Qigong practice and subsequent Tai Chi exercises made him very aware of it.

Russell is a student at the Canberra School of Art studying print making and drawing. The benefits of the relaxation training become apparent when he is working at projects — clarity of thought, clearing peripherals from his mind giving room to think, calmness in the face of deadline pressures and dealing with other people.

Russell says, "As most people know, clarity and calmness aren't just helpful in Tai Chi training, but in everything we do. I try to apply the same principles to my drawing and artwork."

He also took one of the 8 week meditation courses run by Lama Choedak and attended a day workshop on Sleeping and Dreaming meditations. He uses the techniques as a nightly preparation for a sound sleep.

Russell began Tai Chi with his brother and went along out of curiosity although they did intend to do at a least a term to get into some regular exercise. He already had a vague idea of what it was about – "slow Chinese exercise"- and enjoyed it immediately. He attended two terms and then did the Lama’s course in his third term. Being unable to afford more than one thing at a time, he continued Tai Chi, repeating Level 2 the following term and then went on to complete the form.

I asked him about the physical benefits. He said he was surprised to find that a slight problem with stiffness in his neck which became apparent when he sat drawing, cleared up completely after a few weeks of attending classes. When he had the term off to do the meditation course, he noticed the stiffness recurred.

He never found the coordination particularly difficult. However, he regularly mixed up the sequence in Level 3 and had to refer constantly to the video and the manual to get it right. He made the interesting point that the further he got through towards the end of the form, the easier it became to practise. The sequence of movements seemed to take shape as a whole.

Russell had always been curious about martial arts. He wasn’t interested in doing any one martial art unless it offered the same benefits he was getting from his Tai Chi. He wanted the training to involve the mind and body in the true sense of a martial "art", not simply a punching, kicking class, self defence. He liked Chief Instructor Brett Wagland’s and Fontane’s teaching style from his Woden classes and was tempted to try Brett’s Martial Arts course. He decided that he wanted to get a good grip on the Tai Chi form first as he realised it would be complementary knowledge.

Youngish for Tai Chi, maybe, perfect for the harder physical training of martial arts, Russell began attending the Martial Arts class at Easter this year (2001). After 6 months, he reports a vast improvement in his leg strength, calmness, concentration and use of the body. Initially, he noticed sore shoulders and elbows as the tendons were exercised in the punching training. Legs got a rigorous work-out with the "chicken legs" low walking exercise. Arms were at first bruised and then toughened and strengthened in the Pai Da training. The slow, relaxed punching practice is similar to Qigong. Brett’s exhortation to make every punch have spirit demands great concentration when practising the technique for ten or fifteen minutes at a time. Then, there is the coordination of arms and legs for kicking and punching at the same time, all relaxed, all requiring concentration and endless repetition over many months.

This martial arts training routine has become an integral part of Russell’s life and he told me he feels the time spent in practice is real quality time. He can feel it doing a lot of good both physically and mentally. Quite simply, he loves it and can’t imagine not practising. He was very disappointed recently, when he had a bout of tonsillitis and couldn’t attend class.

The financial constraints of being a full time student mean Russell can’t afford Tai Chi classes as well as the Martial Arts course. However, he still goes through his Tai Chi form perhaps once a week and wants to attend Refinement classes again at some future stage. He always practises Qigong and lately has been spending more time on some of the Taoist Qigong exercises, for example, Yin Yang Fish, Rotating Ball. These are very beneficial for those with limited space and or time to practise, keeping the softness in the movements and flexibility in the joints.

A friend of Russell is in the advanced martial arts class and he finds this helps a lot with motivation. He can see where the training is heading and, sees the ability of those more experienced students when they come to train and assist in the intermediate classes. Their willingness to share their knowledge and help other students is an inspiring attitude.

I asked if he was conscious of his increasing ability to either defend himself or inflict damage on an attacker because after all, the training is basically a fighting method. Russell looked surprised and then puzzled as he thought about the question, obviously for the first time. "I suppose so. I don’t think about it," he said. "It’s not about that. I think, I hope, I would be able to relax and use the techniques if it did come to that. From my meditation practice and what I’ve learned from Lama’s courses, I would expect to be able to avoid a confrontation by remaining calm and controlled." This type of training is preparation for dealing with not only physical assaults, but also mental attacks which are becoming increasingly frequent in our stressful society and the pace at which we live.

It is truly admirable that a person of Russell’s age, with all the added distractions of student life, is able to appreciate the wisdom of this approach and dedicate himself to the arduous training required to make progress in this most difficult of disciplines.

Russell’s final words sum up his attitude. "It's hard to describe the benefits I've received from Tai Chi and internal martial arts. Sometimes, I'm not even aware of those benefits, until I'm a couple of minutes into doing Qigong, or doing leg or punch training or the Tai Chi form. At these moments, I can feel my physical and mental progress, and I'm aware that although I still have a long way to go, it's good to know I'm on the right path."