Jeremy Arrow graduated with B.Sc. (Honours) in Biology from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He is a founding member of Theatre Cap-a-Pie specialising in the running of youth theatres in the Northeast region.

"Looking back on over ten years of being a student of Ven. Lama Dondrup Dorje in Newcastle, I cannot remember a single occasion when bad weather has caused us to abandon training outdoors. It might even rain on the day of the scheduled outdoor session, but it usually stops the moment Sifu arrives at the park. It often seems that we are literally training within a small region of calm weather - you look around, and it might be overcast, maybe it looks like it's raining half a mile away, but it isn't raining on us. Coincidence? I think not. In early 1991, there were unprecedented hurricane conditions up and down the length of the UK. Vast amounts of damage were caused and people were injured on that day. It just happened that this unusual weather condition coincided with a scheduled all-day outdoor session with Ven. Lama Dondrup Dorje. Yet Sifu went ahead with the session, and the amazing thing is that, for that day, the Newcastle area seemed to exist in a pocket of calm, in the eye of the hurricane as it were - it didn't rain and there was hardly any wind. In the evening we all commented on how lucky we had been to avoid the worst of the weather after all. Sifu always used to joke with us that he had "put in a request" for good weather. I am not so sure he was joking.