Familiar Tai Chi Chuan Ideas

Tai Chi Chuan Practice and Training

Common Themes, Topics, Ideas, Suggestions, Principles, Concepts, Tips

One Sentence Taijiquan Notes by Mike Garofalo

Lift the head, tuck the chin, extend the neck, feel upright and rising.
Stand strong and balanced, then move slowly and gracefully.
Imagine resistance, water boxing, dealing with an opponent, Da Lu, pushing hands, sensing incoming energies, feeling the Other.
Be loose and relaxed, avoid over-exertion, use coiling energy.
Keep moving, flowing, shaping yourself in body-mind.
Shoulders down, gentle breathing, energized back, dignified bearing.
Be more stylish, artistic, beautiful, sensuous, dancing, formal.
Yin more than Yang, soft over hard, water over stone, gentle over muscular.
Follow the Teacher, coordinate, create unity, move together, act as one.
Act from the center, find the Dan Tien, Centering, secure internal energy.
You are responsible for your own self-defense, safety and fitness.
Develop and maintain the Inner Smile, positive disposition, enthusiasm.
Work within one's steady breathing, learn different breath/movements.
Enhance and maintain one's potential energy reserves for power.
Keep the knees over the feet, and don't over-extend in lunges.
Taijiquan, Tai Chi Chuan, Shadow Boxing, Grand Ultimate Boxing, Cotton Fist, At the Edge Fist, Mind/Fist Arts, .... whatever.
Differentiate between solo and group practices and training.
Learn the names of each numbered movement sequence.
Learn offense and/or defensive applications for each named movement.
Daily practice, review, and repetitions are essential to progress.
Distinguish substantial from unsubstantial, weighted from empty, rooted from moving, stable from unstable.
Be delicate, be gentle, be refined, be fluid, be slow.
Concentrate, remember, embody the patterns, display the Form.
Strengthen the glutes, quads, calves, ankles, and feet; Legs Powers, Thigh Chi.
Stay level, avoid to much bobbing up and down, smooth level movement. 
There is a natural automatic discomfort with falling, we wanting to stay standing and moving upright, we want to work effectively with the forces of gravity.
Working within and slowly out from your current limitations, injuries, mental or physical health problems, or other obstacles. 
Appropriate music might make your Taijiquan practice enjoyable in new ways.
Inhale while pulling in and gathering, exhale while pushing or striking out or blocking; sometimes holding breath; sometimes the opposites. 
If your huffing and puffing, breathing to fast, then you are out of shape but persist after resting and slowing down some; vary and improve your workouts. 
Think process, think evolving, think changing, think becoming; then stop thinking.
Keep a Beginner's Mind, Learn Something, relish the experiences.  



Repost from July of 2020


Tai Chi Chuan Website

Yang Style of Tai Chi Chuan 24 Short Form

Yang Style of Tai Chi Chuan 108 Long Form

Tai Chi Chuan Quotations and Classics

World Tai Chi and Qigong Day in Vancouver Washington

World Tai Chi and Qigong Day 

Saturday, April 28, 2018
10:00 am - Noon
Clark College Campus
Vancouver, Washington

I will be attending this event on Saturday.  

For the next 9 weeks, my new Taijiquan 32 Sword Form teacher will be Jill Ross.  I learned and practiced this form back in 2005; however, I have not practiced this form in the last five years.  

Our class will participate in the World Tai Chi and Qigong Day festivities at
Clark College.  

Flyer for 4/28/2018 Tai Chi and Qigong Day Event.  

The Wisdom of Sifu Patrick Kelly

I recommend that you take a look at Sifu Patrick Kelly's webpage. He teaches in Auckland, New Zealand.

"True Taiji Practice is not limited. It is open to all spheres of life while remaining centred on the refinement of inner spiritual essence. Taiji (Tai Chi), the Supreme Ultimate, is in practice what the 'Dao de Jing' (Tao Te Ching) expresses in principle. These principles remain universal throughout the known worlds, undiminished by their common reduction to intellectual ideas, emotional values, or religious rules, by the various races of the Earth. The universal principles and the method for bringing ourselves into harmony with them could be called the worldwideway, but are really beyond any name. True Taiji is an evolving connection to that.

The great purpose of Taiji is the great purpose of life itself - Spiritual Evolution. Named 'Emptiness, Immortality or Enlightenment' by the Daoists and Buddhists, 'Self Realisation' by the Yogis, 'To Awaken and Merge with the Source' by the Middle Eastern Gnostics and Western Mystics. All people come on to the Earth with this purpose, but most quickly forget why they are here. Once enmeshed in the outer physical world their whole life serves merely the survival of the body (which includes the brain). The great physical and social edifices of human society, intended as forms within which humanity may evolve, become prisons. Many dream of a way out but few find the practical path to freedom.

Individual conscious perfection exists in potential as a spark within every human being. There is a pressure from within and without to develop this possibility. The forces maintaining the universe are complex and the reasons for many things in life unclear. Why do some struggle to realise their inner potential while others dissipate it through a life of ignorance, weakness and neglect? For those who sadly allow this spark to fade there is little individual hope, though their life and death still contribute to the general evolution of humankind. For those who actively choose inner growth there appears the question of the 'Path' or 'Way'.

True Taiji training begins with the physical, then centres itself within the 3 levels of the Deep Mind, while aspiring towards the Beyond and the final realisation of freedom from those 3 worlds of human existence. Ideally this aspiration towards the Beyond (which admits the first ray of light from the Divine Self) exists from the first moments of training, but if not then true training will gradually align the inner motives and intentions, hidden within the Deep Mind of all people, towards the Beyond, inducing this aspiration to appear. Without that aspiration the results of the training will be subverted by the ego - which has a presence on each of the 3 internal levels. True Taiji training methods change and evolve as each person reaches out for, connects with, merges into, then finally fully and naturally expresses the Beyond back into the 3 worlds of human existence. At this advanced stage, all methods disappear and life itself becomes the highest training ground."

Cloud Hands Taijiquan

Valley Spirit Qigong