As the only Li style organisation to be invited to this event the TAO were among 17 countries taking part in this international competition.

Competing against countries such as Spain, Italy, Latvia, Russia, Poland, the Netherlands and Austria this was a great opportunity for the Li style Forms (both T'ai Chi and weapons) to be demonstrated at international level.  

Comprising solely of Forms and Push Hands events this competition provided a great opportunity for members who feel that sparring is not their thing to compete in international competition and was excellent for members of the TAO from England, France and Germany to compete together. 

As well as competitors the TAO were represented amongst the officials with Master Swanson and Françoise Thiemann being asked to form part of the Judges Panel.

Forms
- were judged by a panel of 6 judges with a range of scores to be given between 5.5 (lowest score) and 8.5 (highest). Outstanding performance could merit a higher score (up to 8.8) but this was only if all 6 judges agreed on the score to be given.

The T'ai Chi Form category was carried out in family styles so we had a category all of our own.  Competitors entering this event were Hubert Schneider, Romina Naito-Hilton, Shaun Cahill, Hans Lutz, Bettina Hausmann and Jane Frew.  Although we had no opposition from other organisations our scoring spoke for itself, our lowest score being 7.7 and the highest being 8.2 !

Weapons Forms were judged similarly but were not split into family styles.  Although not so well represented in weapons Forms (3 entrants), the TAO still managed to come away with a silver medal with a score of 7.8.

Nick Carpenter