Summer by the Sea: Our Sennen Training Intensive 2026

Tai Chi and Kung Fu on the sand at Sennen Cove

This July and August we took our training out of the hall and onto the beach. For two weeks, students and teachers from our Truro, Falmouth and St Agnes classes, along with visitors from the Midlands, Brighton and Switzerland, gathered at Sennen Cove in the sweep of Whitesand Bay to train from morning to afternoon with the sea in front of us and the sky above. We have welcomed students from all over the country and the world in previous years, and training alongside people from other groups, with different habits and different questions, makes everyone’s practice sharper.

How it all began

The idea of training in Cornwall dates back to 2005, when I heard in the bath that our Easter Course at Warwick School had been double booked. My Eureka moment was “what if we went down to Cornwall instead?” We had been visiting Cornwall every summer since a hurricane blew our tent down on a camping trip in North Devon, and as I had consulted the I Ching for many years, I flipped a coin to ask the Gods: heads we go, tails we stay. The Gods smiled, and it changed our whole lives. We piloted a week-long course, found the St Just Sports’ Centre and booked a host of holiday cottages, and for years afterwards we made the pilgrimage for a week at Easter and three weeks in the summer. We came to love the area so much that in 2010 we mistakenly applied for a holiday cottage that turned out to be a permanent let. Once again the coin led the way, so we ran the course, came back in September and have been here ever since.

In 2018 an ITN researcher phoned to ask about filming our Summer Course, and I suggested Sennen Cove, where we often held our after-course beach parties. The weather was fantastic all week, and the crew captured footage for an ITN Tonight documentary about alternatives to painkillers.

Two weeks of training

Week one: Tai Chi (27-31 July)

We worked through our Tai Chi forms and spent plenty of time on sticky hands, the two-person practice where you learn to listen, yield and respond. Sand is a wonderful teacher, because the ground shifts beneath you and your balance and rooting have to be honest. Bea worked with Jane, a dance school graduate from Switzerland, and we were amazed how quickly she picked up the movements and the principles of spontaneous movement, or Wuwei. The UK heatwave was in full swing, but a slight haze and patchy cloud kept the beach cool enough to train comfortably, and Bea’s big canopy gave us shade at lunch so everyone got a proper rest before the afternoon session.

Week two: Kung Fu, Hand of the Wind (3-7 August)

The Kung Fu week was mostly our more advanced students, so we went deeper into freeform training. We kept up the sticky hands work and pulled apart single techniques that are notoriously difficult to get right, such as the rear naked choke. Slowing a technique down, breaking it into its parts and putting it back together is where real understanding comes from.

Camping, Cornish food and the next course

Many of us camped at Brea Vean Farm, where there was no dew and the nights were even warm. We were up early each day for a full cooked Cornish breakfast at the Dog and Rabbit or one of the other cafés in St Just and Sennen Cove, and in the evenings we ate around West Penwith: Newlyn, the Mackerel Sky, the Tolcarne Inn, Mousehole, the Coastguard Inn, and a takeaway from the Red Star Beijing in St Just. Whether you’re new to Tai Chi, coming back after a break, or ready to go deeper, our courses are built for steady progress over days and weeks rather than a single hour. Come to one of our regular classes in Truro, Falmouth or St Agnes and you’ll be first to hear about the next intensive.