Last month I had the immense pleasure of finally participating in one of the IAI training retreats in Tuscany. I had heard from my training partners how amazing the setting, training and community at these retreats were and wow, it did not disappoint. I found the experience deeply impactful in a way I am still in the process of understanding.
At the time of the retreat, it had been almost 4 years since I’d been able to train with Tom and Val. I moved from New York to Sydney in the fall of 2022, and since then also welcomed the birth of my second son in July of 2024. All wonderful things that I’m grateful for, but they did prevent me from being able to meet and train with my teachers and peers.
As the 2026 retreat approached, the factors in my life were finally settled to the point where I could attend. Before buying my tickets to Europe I reached out to Tom and Val to see if there was any way to get some more time with them. They very generously made space to meet and train with me in Southern France for the week before the retreat! At this point I was so excited for my trip I felt like a kid counting down the days to Christmas months in advance.
I’ve loved living in Australia, but the travel times back to Europe and the United States are quite intimidating. I remember being a bit shocked when I bought my tickets to Europe and saw the travel duration for my flight to Paris clocking in at 27 hours. Despite the intimidating length, my flight out was smooth and comfortable. It turns out that international travel with a 1 and 4 year old really reframes one’s perspective on what difficult traveling is.
Arriving in Paris in the afternoon I managed to stay awake until the sun set and then thankfully got a great night’s sleep. The next morning I was on the train south, just a few hours from finally getting to see Tom and Val again. They had very graciously offered to meet me at the train station, and as soon as we reunited it didn’t seem possible that it had been over 3 years since we had last spent time together in person. We spent that first day driving to where we’d be staying, catching up, and getting settled.
The following day we began training as the sun was rising. One of the things I had been missing most in Australia was the insightful feedback from both Tom and Val on my Ba Gua and Xing Yi, and we jumped right in to working on my Xing Yi fundamentals – the Tu Na Si Ba breathing exercises and the 5 elements. As always, this beautiful system relentlessly revealed all of my areas available for improvement, and by the end of the day my mind was swimming with all the insightful corrections and patient instruction I had received.
Over the course of that week we also trained Guo Gu Min’s Ding Shi changes and Changing Palms, as well as the first couple sections of the 108 Cane form that Tom has been working on for the past few years. One of the afternoons I enjoyed most was spent assisting Tom in filming the applications for the 4th line of the 64 Hands. Tom demonstrating applications on me has been one of my most potent sources for directly experiencing the principles of the internal arts. It was refreshing, inspiring and educational to be able to participate in that again.
At the end of this awesome week of training and catching up we drove to Terenzana for the formal start of the retreat. The immersive quality of the retreat and the wonderful community training there provided the perfect environment to maintain the momentum of internal discovery that my solo week with Tom and Val had ignited.
While the setting and the training schedule were incredible, I was most excited to reconnect with my training community. I am only just beginning to cultivate a local community in Sydney and I was hungry for interaction with other skilled practitioners in my lineage.
I was tremendously excited to reunite with the people I had been training with for years before I left for Australia. But I was also looking forward to meeting several people that have come into our community since I left.
Regardless of how long they had been training with Tom and Val, every single person there had an open-hearted receptivity to learn and an eagerness to help their training partners make progress. A great example of this generosity was my fellow instructor Kelly McDonald out in the heat every afternoon in our unscheduled hours, helping a group of us make a bit more progress with the 108 Cane form.
In the mornings we would work on the 5 Animal Frolics, followed by intensive work after breakfast on the 12 Animals of Xing Yi Quan. After the always delicious lunch cooked by the staff at Terenzana there was time for a quick dip in the pool, rest and recovery. Then in the afternoon we would spend a couple hours training the 8 Animal form of Ba Gua Zhang.
The 5 Animal Frolics were brand new to me, and I was caught off guard by how deeply I felt them shift things inside me from the first day that we trained them. In fact, after my first experience with the frolics, I felt a bit weird and uncomfortable. Almost light headed and nauseous. It reminded me of some of my early experiences when I first began training post standing regularly. But by the time the retreat ended I felt a powerful affinity for this outwardly simple series of walking Qi Gong practices.
I had trained the Ba Gua and Xing Yi animals in the past, so I was familiar with their basic form. None of the choreography caught me by surprise. But as the retreat progressed, I noticed my internal experience within that choreography began to feel noticeably different. Qualities I have observed for years in Tom and Val emerged more clearly through me than I had ever experienced before.
For example, as outwardly simple as the Xing Yi Tiger is, I have always felt like my execution of it was missing something. Even when Tom would give me specific corrections and allow me to feel the movement in his back and body, it just never felt like it expressed correctly in mine.
But at the retreat, over a decade after I first learned the Xing Yi Tiger, I could feel it finally emerging. There was an exciting moment where I felt the quality I had witnessed for all those years in Tom and Val travel through my back. And right when I felt it Tom confirmed it with a simple “that’s good.”
I believe that these moments where the art emerges through us in a way that feels like a breakthrough are the natural result of patiently practicing over time. We cannot dictate when they happen, and in fact trying to force them only seems to push them further out of reach. Which makes these moments all the more special and exciting when they do occur.
Another highlight for me in the whole experience was being able to observe and participate in the testing and promotion of two Ba Gua Zhang Instructors: Karlos D’Agostino was promoted to Foundational Instructor, and Joe Cool was promoted to Senior Instructor. I was very impressed with how well both of them did under the pressure of having to demonstrate forms and applications in front of Tom, Val and a small panel of other instructors. Especially since neither of them knew for sure that they were testing until they were already at the retreat.
It was fascinating and inspiring to observe how Tom structured their tests to achieve a balance that felt both pressurized and supportive. It was almost like an intensive private lesson for the both of them, with Tom jumping in occasionally to give them suggestions about how to improve a movement or application. Tom’s honest desire to help them become as skillful as possible in the internal arts was on full display, and it was a joy to watch.
I left the retreat feeling deeply fulfilled on all levels. Loaded up with new material, memories and insights, I returned home to begin slowly processing everything I had experienced. My approach has been to allow the effects to gradually reveal themselves through rotating all my new material in a practice that is sustainable in my daily life. I continue to feel the ripples of that experience emerging in my practice and teaching.
I miss getting to train everyday with such a great community in a stunningly beautiful setting, but that longing is fuel motivating me to attend another IAI retreat as soon as my life will allow. Hope to see you there!
