Tai Chi Blog

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 aspire…

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…

Now that we’ve begun in my Monday class to explore the possibilities and potential inherent in push-hands, the time has come to discuss “peng jin” or “ward-off-energy.” Like many Chinese words, “peng jin” is highly contextual.  A meaningful direct translation to English is all but impossible.  This author comes as close as I’ve seen to…

There’s a public Facebook group for the Tai Chi classes now:https://www.facebook.com/groups/240945434106562 It’s a better way to interact when we’re not together – if you have questions, that’s an ideal place to ask them as they occur to you.  Likewise, it’s easy and quick to post resources, links and learning materials in a timely manner. The…

Look through enough tai chi blogs or read enough tai chi texts and you’ll run across references to the “bagua,” the “Eight Trigrams” of the I Ching.  It’s represented in the diagram below. A very simplified version of the Bagua symbol.  Most are far more complicated. Without going into needless detail, this symbol is a…

Among his many other accomplishments, Confucius is said to have been an archery instructor.  If you want to know whether he considered this a career or whether it was just a side gig between studying the I Ching and writing the rules for an entire society, you’ll need to consult a better historian than I…

Back when I first introduced myself to the staff at East Wind, the studio owner asked me about the possibility of including self-defense training alongside tai chi instruction.  I was hesitant to answer, largely because I didn’t quite know how to answer her.  It’s taken a while to form a satisfactory response; it’s a valid…