Tai Chi Blog

Questions January 2022 New Years symbolizes optimism, potential, hope and expectations.  It’s my hope that 2022 will be a year of growth and enrichment for all my students. I’ve said before that my goal as a tai chi teacher is to get my students to a point where they need a better teacher than I…

16 December 2021 No one needs to be told how to breathe.  It’s automatic.  What I didn’t know before a week or two ago, however, is that humans are one of very few creatures who can override our automatic breathing and control it consciously.  I don’t know why this is so and if anyone else…

21 November 2021 “If my opponent does not move, I do not move.  The instant he moves, I am already there.”EXPOSITIONS OF INSIGHTS INTO THE PRACTICE OF THE THIRTEEN POSTURESby Wu Yu-hsiang In his book “The Martial Arts Teacher – a Practical Path for a Noble Way,” author Jonathan Bluestein advises that the teacher should…

This morning my students took a lot longer to get started than normal.  I showed up early and was finished with an entire qigong routine before any of them had arrived.  They spent a great deal of time chatting and catching up – it’s been several weeks since we were all together, and it took…

A few years ago, I was talking with someone about tai chi and she said she couldn’t do it because she was clumsy and had no balance.  I told her, “This is exactly what tai chi improves, which is why you should consider it” but she dug her heels in deeper – she was clumsy…

One of tai chi’s distinguishing characteristics is the challenge it presents communicating all the subtle concepts contained within it.  You’d be hard-pressed to find a tai chi blog or book anywhere that doesn’t have some version of the sentence, “This concept is difficult to describe.”  A direct example of this challenging aspect of tai chi…

You’ve seen me use the word “player” in regard to one who practices tai chi.  There are a few reasons for it which are worth going over. The first and most important is that it’s the word the Yang family uses.  Since I’m a dues-paying member of the International Yang Family Tai Chi Association and…

Recently my friend Annette Evans, author of the “On Her Own” blog and website, referred to activities like going to the doctor, undertaking therapy and taking time for oneself as “radical self-care” and “the ultimate form of self-defense, defending yourself against your most intimate potential enemy: the demons in your own mind and the gremlins…

A prospective student asked the studio not long ago what the difference was between tai chi and qigong.  I probably should have addressed this question earlier so people answering the phones would have a ready answer.  But since experience is a thing you don’t get until right after you need it, here we are. The…

Ask any 100 tai chi students what the hardest part of tai chi is and I suspect the majority of answers you’ll get are variations of:o  Memorizing the formo  Getting the body position correcto  Remembering the Ten Essential Principleso  Doing well at push-handso  Feeling the energy…and so on. These are important, but to my thinking…