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Wishing you a Happy and Prosperous Chinese New Year!
Have a fruitful DOG year in 2006!

song kua .. song kua .. song kua…..
I bet you heard your teacher saying this over and over and beginners may have difficulties understand what is song kua. Literally speaking, it means to relax the hips or the area i.e. where the thigh bone meets the hip. Be aware of the crease between the thigh and hip and not straighten. Kind of hard to comprehend???
By achieving song kua, the body dynamics will be in place. Your will be able to stand a slower stance without bending the …

In Chinese, 名 (famous) and 明 (enlightened or knowledgeable) sound the same. We prefer to seek the knowledgeable teacher to learn. In this case, knowledgeable refers to the knowledge of imparting knowledge. Not that famous teachers are bad in that, but sometimes with fame and commericalization, proper knowledge transfer becomes secondary.
Good taiji teachers should have good knowledge of taiji. They should not talk in terms of yi or qi too much. They should understand each student are different in their rate of learning. taiji should be …

What make an beginner different from someone who has been practising taijiquan for long is the eyes. The eyes conveys a strong message and tell you a lof of a person.
While doing taijiquan this is even more obvious. Someone who is new to taijiquan has his eyes all over the place. Sometimes he is looking at his teacher,, sometimes on his feet ,sometimes on his hand and sometimes in the air. After some time, he should be able to focus more on the yi and let his hands …

If you are attending regular taiji classes with your instructor, good for you! Face to face instruction is the best way to learn. It also allows you to ask questions and clear your doubts. You can also see how your fellow classmates or seniors do their form and practise.
I know many of you do not have the luxury of attending regular class, so how do you learn? I can think of the following :

find a park or practise ground and do it on your own
read taiji books and gain …

People like to asked me “Does doing taiji really benefits you in terms of health keeping?”
Usually I do not going into propagation mode and talk about “qi” and stuff. I would told them if they have not been exercising then they will see the most health benefits if they took up taiji.
Taiji is not a magically thing. People who said it was have probably some commercial interests invested in the sports. You need to combine taiji with a sensible diet, having enough sleep and maintaining a calmful mind. The …

You must have been taught there is a transition stroke between 6 Sealings and 4 closings and Single Whip especially if you are doing the Old Frame. It is actually a series of movement that look like you are rotating a ball while holding it with both palms open. The movements relied alot of the wrists movements and the hip rotation. You can “rotate” the “imaginary” ball one and half times or 2 and half times.
WHat actually is behind this movement is a “qinna” (Joint locking) breacking …

5 steps to learning taiji as mentioned by Master Zhu Tiancai
1) Learn
pick up fron an instructor. You will end up following whatever your instructor teach you no matter what the quality of the teachings. You need to fcous on learning the postures and strokes of the routine and build up your strengths gradually.
2) Observe
once you have finished learning the whole set of routine, you start to observe how people do the set. Different people have different way of doing it even though it is the same set.
3) Listen
Listen more to …

i love chinese taiji books because

they are cheap
they are wrote by taiji masters
the masters really know their arts
they are really cheap..

When i first start doing taiji, i remember there were some pain in my knees the next day. What are the possible causes?
3 possible reasons :
a)change in activity levels! many of us are coach potatos before we took up taiji so expect the knees to protest a bit such pain should not stay for long, so no worries .
b)Incorrect position of knee. This happens when your toes are point at 90° but yr knees are pointing at 45°. This caused unneccessary stress on the knees.
c)Low and …