Tai Ji 108

We've started learning the 108 and well I must say it's definitely intense. Our Shifu gave us a bit of a lecture on Tai Ji that I found really interesting. He said that there's two ways to practice Tai Ji. One is for feeling, so for instance I would say the way people practice normally, working on fluid movement and continuous motion and learning to feel the chi in the movement.

He explained that the other way is to practice similarly to have fluid movement and continuous motion but also to have incredibly low stances. This builds up strength and flexibility together. He said that lifting weights and doing other things like push ups, sit ups, and squats etc., make your body strong but also tend to make your tendons and ligaments stiff. He said practicing Tai Ji with stances as low and as wide as possible helps build up what he calls elastic power. So it's not just the power in your muscles but also improves the power in your tendons and ligaments helping to prevent future injury. He feels that this kind of practice is very important.

I'm not going to go so far as to say that I really like practicing Tai Ji in this fashion but I can see and feel the difference in my body already and it's only been a couple of weeks. I'm really looking forward to the improvement.