So, without further ado:

So far in the series (in order) we have:

• Rocking Motion
• Bird Flaps It’s Wings
• Around The Platter
• Carry Ball Around The Platter
• Bass Drum
• Princess On The Mountain Top

Some key points:

• Keep those shoulders loose!
• Make your motions even and steady.
• Don’t bend the knees too much as you get used to the form

As always, please check out my Teaching Gigs page.

Let me know how the videos are working for you in the comments! Cheers!

Here it is!

Sorry the sound quality is not so good.  ;)

Cheers!

One thing I failed to mention in the video – The hand position is gender specific.  For men it’s right hand passing in front of left. For women it’s left hand passing in front of right.  This does not change as you switch feet.  I am not going to defend the political correctness of such a tradition. The fact is that in my experience the thousands of years put into empirical research by both men & women in the development of Chi Kung practices is worthy of respect.  But, you are your own authority ultimately and I would enourage any and all to experiment to see what works best for themselves.

During my own initial practice of Tai Chi Chih, over the course of my 1.000 day vow I experimented with reversing the hand positioning.  I put left in front of with in the Yin formation for 3 solid months.  The results were less than pleasant.  I did not get girly, but I did get sick and was afflicted with odd pains in my joints which cleared up a week after the experiment ended.  So, in short: mover beware.

Some key points:

• Watch those shoulders!  Keep them relaxed, fight against the raise.
• Make your breaths deep.  It should feel like your breath is hitting your pelvis.

I hope you folks are enjoying this and finding the vids useful. I would love any, and all, feedback in the comments.

Cheers!

*drum roll*

(Get it?)

Some key points:

• Do what you can.  Push yourself, but not your limits.
• The hand flutter in the left hand comes usually after about two years of regular practice and is a confirming sign that chi is flowing.
• You may experience flushes of gentle warmth while practicing.  That is a good thing.

As always, I would love to get your comments on these exercises and their presentation.  Cheers!

This week we go over “Around the Platter.”  This is the first of the general set of motions after the two warm ups we went over, Rocking Motion, and Bird Flaps It’s Wings.

Some keypoints:

• The breathing pattern is not strictly one way, but should be consistent within a particular set.  I always exhale while moving forward and inhale when moving back, but the reverse works just as good.  Find what is comfortable with you, and remain open to changing it if your body seems to dictate doing so.
• Soreness in the knees is okay, sharp pains are not!
• Take your time, go slow, and let the movement show you what it can do for you.

As always, you can check my Teaching Gigs page and stop in if you are in the area.  I’d love to see you!

Happy Tai Chi!

A few points for this exercise:

• Build up the knee flex slowly(!!), and make sure the knee moves along a line guided by the inside edge of the bone process leading up to your big toe.  Take it nice and easy and work up to deeper bends.
• Raising the heels is more important to the Chi effect of the exercise  than bending the knees
• Breathe!

Any questions, feel free to comment below.  Let me know how you are doing with these moves!

Check out the first move in the series here, as well as my teaching schedule.

Until next time, happy Tai Chi!

In this video I demonstrate the first exercise in the series, a warm up called Rocking Motion.

A few points:

• Looking into the far distance, as if looking to the most distant horizon, helps with balance.
• Do not strain to lift the balls of the feet, or the heels, to high when starting.
• Try to keep the breathing consistent, but don’t worry about it too much at first. I tend to exhale as I raise my arms for the forward swing and inhale on the back swing, but any consistent pattern is fine.

Please feel free to hit me with any questions. I’ll be releasing these videos weekly until the series is done.

Please see my Teaching Gigs page for my current schedule!

Cheers!

I am, as always grateful beyond expression to my wife, Daisy, whom I met on the mat and who has always been an inspiration to me and very gracious in letting me devote lots of time to practice.

My Sensei, James Friedman, of course is the most directly responsible for what I have learned.  All of the teachers at the dojo have given lots of time and energy over the last 13 years while I stumbled my way to this point. To them I owe a great deal of thanks and debt, and plan to repay it by passing on what I have learned.

To our teacher from Japan, Kato Hiroshi Sensei, I feel great gratitude for his amazing skill, the example of practice he provides and his willingness to always push his own boundaries.

Lastly, to O’Sensei.  Eternal thanks for birthing this wonderful martial art.

Let em know what you think.  Cheers!

It’s pretty common knowledge that women, and girls, in the Western world have long had their self esteem and body-image confidence assaulted by depictions of idealized female bodies far out of tune with reality.  What is slightly less well known is that obese, and morbidly obese people on both sides of the gender line (and the breadth of possibilities between the two poles) have had their self esteem and body-image confidence eroded in the same way.

Check out the covers of most any fitness magazine and you’ll see what I mean.  If you look at the bodybuilding magazines specifically, things get way out of hand.

Frank Zane

Basically I wanted to look something like Frank Zane.  Talk about going from o to 60!!  No way.  Not that it’s impossible, it’s just that it’s incredibly unlikely and far to afield to serve as a useful spur to action.  I would have to work for years doing nothing else, and as I later learned do some things along the way which would make the whole thing less than authentic and in no way sustainable. I am fairly positive that Frank Zane never used steroids, but the majority of the hulking figures grinning at me from the magazine stands, encouraging me to work hard and with dedication almost certainly did.

I also, in my naivety thought that these guys just looked like that hanging out for coffee and going shopping.  I thought that, that was just how you looked if you worked out hard enough, smart enough, and for long enough.  Boy, was I way off base!

Enter the Body for Life contest.  Let me say right off the bat that I did the BfL 12 week challenge twice.  The first time I had results that made me excited and were, in my opinion, extremely good.  The second round began to lose its charm, and I realized that (as a compulsive overeater) the eating style recommended by the program was not a good match for me.  Still, I would not hesitate to recommend the program to anyone as something to look at, and try out.

That being said, it was in the Body for Life materials that I began to realize how unrealistic my projected (and hoped for) results were.

To put it bluntly, the after pics in Body for Life, and in every muscle mag cover photo shoot ever, are highly askew from walk-a-day reality.  The Body for Life material has a specific plan for getting those hot shots.  Basically you starve yourself for a couple of days before the shoot to shave off some extra fat, while doing extra rounds of aerobics.  Then, on the day of the shoot you eat a bowl (or 4) of high sugar cereal to pump your blood sugar up (the recommendation used to be Fruit Loops) and drink copious amounts of water while going through a high-intensity weight lifting routine.  The lifting pumps your muscles up and sucks the sugar into them, which then binds with the excess water inflating the muscle tissue even more.  Basically you pre-starve the muscles and then target a water bloat into the parts that look best when flexed.  End result, you look awesome for about an hour.

Not a picture of reality.  Once I learned that I went through a bout of mild depression wondering if my years of work were all for nothing.  Then I began to seek out alternate sources of healthy inspiration and images of healthy bodies.  I also smartened up and started looking for people who were working in my personal area of fitness passion, (martial arts), and who had my basic body structure.  I looked for people who looked kind of like me, just with less excess fat.

James Tiberius Kirk!

It was a long slow battle, but now I’ve arrived at an attainable goal.  One which (as a completely irrepressible Sci-fi/TV/Gamer geek) is just up my alley.  The Mighty (pre-TJ Hooker) Kirk!

Having a realistic, and human, goal in mind has done wonders for my self esteem and results.  Now my goal is actually attainable without chemical assistance or momentary (shocking) changes to my body.

In my particular case attaining the body I have today did require some surgical intervention, but that’s another post.

Having an image to shoot for is a great idea, and can be a really dynamic source of inspiration.  Just make it a realistic one and your results will vastly improve.

I would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section.  Cheers!

PS – Oh, and I do admit it, the martial arts geek in me would not mind ending up looking like ths:

Bruce Lee