Now here was an interesting opportunity. A chance to find out about the much talked about ‘Snake Form’, exposure to different ideas/concepts and an environment to develop them in. With an opportunity like that, who would pass it up?

The Seminar was held over four very compact days. The first three were essentially about memorising the outer shell of the form, the ‘shape’ if you will, while testing individual postures. All this was being taken on board while we were essentially learning a new structural type. Needless to say we had three days of trying to remember one posture after the next, after the next and once the basic postures were taken on board, the challenge of remembering their sequence quickly arose. The fourth and final day was spent either repeating the form in the hope of embedding it enough to walk away with it intact or working on specific aspects that demonstrated more clearly the snake form’s function and application.

My lasting impression from the week was that practicing the snake form is like driving a very high performance car. When driven correctly that car can be made to do amazing things, but with a newcomer behind the wheel, all the flaws and errors in the drivers style are thrown into stark relief. The same seems true with the snake form, it’s unforgiving, and it must be performed very precisely and accurately if it is to function properly, but when it does function, it performs like nothing I’ve ever seen before !