Please check the link below for the event page:

bristol-buddhist-centre.org/events/creating-ease-for-meditation-daily-life-workshop-with-upayavira/?date=2025-11-15

​It starts at 10:00 and runs until 16:00, and is at 162 Gloucester Road, Bishopston. Hope to see some of you there!

Hey you guys! Thanks to everyone that came along and said hi at the show last weekend, we had an amazing time and it was really lovely meeting you all!

Big cheers to Martin Gatter of Shi Kon Martial Arts. He put on a brilliant Tai Chi workshop that I enjoyed immensely. I appreciate him letting me take part, appreciate his student Collin helping me (and he was very patient with me indeed) and encourage anyone in the London area to have a look at the Shi Kon Martial Arts website, linked below:

www.shikon-se.com/club-instructor

I also want to thank Hakim of Silat Seni Gayong for letting me participate in his workshop. We did some empty handed linework, knife drills and even some locks using the sarong. I've wanted to learn some Silat for years, but this was my first opportunity. Hakim was very kind, and his son did an excellent job of helping demonstrate some of the techniques.

You can check out the Bristol club website here:

www.bristolsu.org.uk/groups/silat-seni-gayong-united-kingdom

I was thrown many times, and as painful as it was on my poor, aching wrists, I thoroughly recommend it.

As for the Yan Shou Gong workshop itself, I was on camera duties while Malcolm, Richard and Paul instructed the class. We had four wonderful people in attendance from various places in the UK, and they all did very well.

We really appreciate every one of you, and hopefully our paths will cross again at another workshop sometime in the future!

A full video will be up on YouTube soon where I'll give a rambling rundown of how everything went, so if you want to take a look, be sure to subscribe to the West Country Yan Shou Gong channel, here:

www.youtube.com/@WestCountryYanShouGong

There are multiple workshops lined up over the next few months, so if you want to sign up, either go to the yanshougong.uk/ site, or take a look at the www.yanshougong.org/ page for international events. We'd love to see you at a workshop soon!

Hey you guys! Just a quick one to inform you that Master Yap will be hosting a Q and A session online, tomorrow afternoon (September 20th).

If you are interested in attending, I believe there are still a couple of spaces open. Just follow the link at the bottom of this page (or any of the pages on this site) to subscribe to the YSG newsletter, and you should receive an email with further details.

The session will be hosted on Zoom, and will begin at 14:00 (for those of us in Britain, at least). It will last for one hour, and is a great opportunity for you guys to learn a little more about sets one through to six.

I won't be able to join the call as I'll be in Thornbury for the Southwest Martial Arts and Wellbeing Show, so if any of you are attending the expo, feel free to come and say hello!

Hey you guys, just a quick post to thank Jamie and Karen for attending the workshop in Chew Valley today. We worked through a few different warm up exercises, different drills or movements for gaining awareness in the palms, collecting and moving energy from the ground and letting it flow through the spine, and worked through our first form, All Things Come From Emptiness.

Jamie is a regular Yan Shou Gonger at this point, as well as having experienced Han Yan Ru Yi Gong, so he did very well as always, and Karen was brand new to YSG. She was truly excellent, and both of them really made the workshop a pleasure to run.

If you're interesting in attending an upcoming event, just send an email via the contact form, or check out the workshops section of the website to find what else is going on in the West Country.

The next workshop that's on the horizon is at the South West Martial Arts and Wellbeing Show, Saturday 20th of September. Richard, Paul and Malcolm will be leading the workshop, which will start at 16:30. I'll be around as well, so feel free to come by and say hi at the YSG stall.

Hey you guys, so last weekend, I attended Vegan Campout for the third year in a row. It was a great experience; there were many wonderful speakers, brilliant presentations, awesome bands, and of course, lots of amazing food. Lots, and lots, and lots, of amazing food.

Amidst the wandering about, listening to music, chatting with people (and eating, of course, lots, and lots, and lots of eating), how was I ever able to find time to dedicate to my practice of Yan Shou Gong?

As an instructor, I think it's really important that I try to spend time every day to go through my forms, to stretch, to try and cultivate more energy, to refine my techniques, but this isn't always easy. The nice thing about learning Yan Shou Gong, is that we don't need to invest a huge amount of daily time to achieve this.

I found that I was able to get up and run through All Things Comes From Emptiness several times, without rushing, without setting an alarm at some ungodly hour, without any stress, and I could finish the day in the same way, or chain together different forms (the different forms flow from one to another very well).

It was pretty late when we'd be wrapping up for the night, sure, but it's possible to run through forms one, two and three in just a few minutes. We don't always want to do it, I understand that, and obviously it's up to each student to decide for themselves how much time to spend with the forms, or whether they even want to do this every day, but the point I want to stress is that if we're really committed to this art, we can always find the time. It might just be five minutes, a couple of times a day, but every time we spend those five minutes on our forms, remember, that's experience that goes in the bank, and every time we do it, we build our foundation a little more, and every little helps.

It's not every weekend that we're attending an event or a party, a concert or whatever else might be going on, but when we do, we can always put aside a couple of minutes to reset, to go through a form or two and deposit that Yan Shou Gong money in the bank.

When we get up in the morning, we can go through a form or two before we even drag ourselves into the bathroom to brush our teeth. When we get ready for sleep at night, we can do the same. Ideally we'd have more time, maybe we could have three or four little Yan Shou Gong sessions during the day or spend thirty minutes or so with it before lunch, but we all have different routines and different commitments.

However you choose to do it, however much time you can spare, just remember, little and often will get the job done. Invest a minute here, a minute there, and all that Yan Shou Gong money goes in the bank.