Step 1

Your first check point is your feet; this is your contact to the ground where a static reference point must be anchored to give your movement substance. Don’t forget this especially as you are using one foot as a centre and a root. Power in tai chi comes from the whip effect. Force is generated either from you or your opponent, controlled in the waist (whip handle) and manifest itself in your hands (lash or end of the whip). This cannot happen with out the ground , when I say energy I mean force from you or your opponent stored in the leg muscles, If a spring is pushed down it can only store energy if it has a base. Remember Tai Chi is'nt like going for a walk or a run when you can only feel the burn later on in the routine, you should feel it as soon as you relax into your first posture or to be extreme all the time you are standing doing Tai Chi or not, well if you are doing this you are actually doing Tai Chi all the time.

Step 2

Weight transition from one leg to another is the next step. The weight at beginner level will just gradually move, but the problem with this is that your are double weight a lot of the time which is not good, because you will be easily unbalanced and force will be restricted. The object is to keep single weighted as much as possible, so this is where leg strength is important, a few people suggest that Tai chi is different because it uses chi force or whatever and you don’t need muscle training. This is not true, one there is no such thing as chi bolts or energy release. 2 most of the original Master either came from an external art first or train bloody hard. Tai Chi Power comes from the legs and the ability for your body to relax determines the efficacy and effectiveness of this.

Step 3

Waist movement is where the stored or induced power is controlled and directed. So for this to happen we must not be in weight transition, as in step 2. We should only turn when we have a high percentage of weight in one leg. The power from the whip is released when the hand stops, yes if the hand keeps going there will be still energy but not same amount. So if we are still moving when the power is released we will lose power.

Step 4

The next step is movement, learning to walk again Tai Chi style. When we first learna new movement our brain will be in charge but for most martial arts, sports etc... We need quicker focused movement. The body, when movements are train over and over again, no longer needs certain movements to be channelled to the brain, so then they become quicker, stronger and more importantly relaxed. We can enhance this by imagining that our movements are created and controlled by the waist or our centre. When you take a step try and think or imagine that your centre (waist) initiates the step, that the spark to move the leg instead of coming from the brain comes from the waist. The other important issue is that the step should not be transmitted through out the body, so this means if another person has contact they would not know you are moving.

Step 5

So step 5 where a lot of teachers start and end and call it Tai Chi or what I call waving your hands about. Unfortunately this is where most students get hung up and only see the arm and hand movements as Tai Chi. Yes they are important but only when its part of the whole. Its not like switching on your kitchin light, what I mean is that I can turn on a light switch and get the desired end result with out knowing or understanding why it works, but with Tai Chi it’s more like building a lighting circuit where there are components and links to these components and a series of events that are need to be mapped out exactly for the light to work.

The Tai Chi arms manifest the power from the ground and legs and show the direction and intent of the waist. The control of the arm should not start in the brain and the force or power should not originate in the arm muscles. The arms only move if riding on the waist and power is only released if it comes from the legs. The muscles in the arms are used for structure and to implement application. Obviously the brain does do something but try thinking of Tai Chi as like pushing open aheavy door, think about it and maybe you will open another door, think about it.