My thoughts on how to learn Tai Chi Chuan / Taijiquan?
When someone asks me how to learn Tai Chi Chuan (or Taijiquan), I usually explain this by comparing it to learning a language.
Why learn Tai Chi?
I know we all have only 24 hours. And there is so much one could learn and spend time with! Languages, knitting, gardening, surfing, playing an instrument, cooking etc. And all those things make excellent hobbies, now why learn Tai Chi?
Should you call your Tai Chi teacher “Sifu”?
When you want to learn Tai Chi, you will notice many more or less strange things. People wearing silk pajamas as martial arts clothes, Yin Yang symbols and martial arts weapons everywhere, not to speak of all the strange Chinese words (e.g. 太極拳 or 氣功). And if you’ve read your fare share of martial arts books and […]
What you need to know if you search for “Tai Chi near me”
Let me tell you: I think it is really great that you search for “Tai Chi near me”. I remember when I searched for my first Tai Chi classes near me in 2004. And I remember that I found the results to be very confusing. First, I stumbled across some different words. Because there are […]
Why it’s important to practice what you’ve learnt in Taijiquan or Qi Gong class
Recently I went to a workshop with Chen Bin, son of Chen Zhenglei. It was about the Chen style basics, so we did a lot of pole standing (Zhan Zhuang), Silk Reeling exercises (Chan Si Gong) and footwork. And of course, Chen Bin talked to us about various other topics. At one point he talked […]