When I said learning less everyday, I didn’t think that emotions played a big part. I know that the more I learn, I seem to know less about the world around me. Maybe my tag line should read “learning less about the world everyday”, but that’s not true either. I wanted to learn the way [...]
Out of the 100 rounds of push hands I did, I “felt” 2 follows and 0 borrows. And realised the distinction between them.
When pushing hands, the message is always to “listen” to the intent of the force, but feeling it with your hands. If you know the intent of the force, you will know where [...]
In push hands, one of my teacher’s favourite quote is to tell us not to push your partner into oblivion.
Push 70% and leave 30% for yourself (逼人七分，留三分给自己）
I’ve unconsciously recorded this in my mind, only to realise I like the quote because I used it in my teaching as well!
The reason he gave? If you push [...]
I’ve been doing the Sun style form since my first lesson with my current teacher. After learning the whole form, it’s been doing it over and over again. The one consistent message which keeps coming through is this - my form lacks substance.
I’ve been trying to figure out what this “substance” is. I think it’s [...]
My work requires me to anticipate on a daily basis - more commonly known as “risk management” in the industry. It’s a nice sounding term but it cracks the brain, literally. We need to come up with scenarios, however unlikely, so that we have a system in place which is robust enough to deal with [...]
I was enjoying myself in a push hand exercise but my training partner was intent on uprooting me!
I asked: “Why push me all the way?”
He said: “In order to win in a push hand contest, I have to make at least one of your foot leave the ground to score a point.”
“But I’m not in [...]
It’s not everyday I come across a fundamental change in a person in such a short space of time. This was the guy who treated the push hand exercise as a free sparring exercise (see previous article). The past few times I’ve pushed with him, his hand had lightened up. You can see the restrain [...]
My regular push hand class has pushed me further and further away - the “things I thought I knew” column is migrating to the “things I don’t know” column. So i’m losing my balance more often, and losing concentration more often as well, while I ride the transitional learning curve.
One of the bad habits [...]
I read books to understand tai ji. I read books to find answers to why this move must be like this and why the hand must be there. I read to know more, to understand more. My conversation with my teacher told me something entirely different.
He reads to confirm his understanding. He buys lots of [...]
I always find it difficult to judge how much to talk about tai ji with non-tai ji folk or tai ji beginners. It’s ok if someone comes up to you and ask a specific question, like what comes after this step. The more difficult ones i’ve encountered are… can tai chi kill? Even the mere [...]