Good article on best practices in taiji

Here is an interesting article called “Overview of Best Practices in Taji” by Dr. Yang Yang, a scholar and practitioner of taijiquan. His site seems to have much more information and he seems to have done extensive scholarly and practical research. His expertise confirms some of the conclusions I’ve been arriving at via my much [...]

“Invest in mistakes”

Continuing the idea on what the Tiger Woods of the world and great coaches say or do to focus on excellence with winning as a byproduct, one often hears the phrase “invest in loss” but I really don’t like that phrase. It captures the same idea but worded in a negative way that is still [...]

Getting in the groove and Tiger Woods’ drive for excellence

I was reading another thread on emptyflower on how long it takes various people to get in the groove or zone after doing form or warmups. Various people said quite a long time. Some said it should be instant. I’d have to agree it can take a long time but it should be nearly instant. [...]

Shuaijiao judo comparison

Interesting comparison on emptyflower. Excerpt:
judo good- lots of judo people out there, LOTS. not much politics. very functional. techniques are tested regularly. ground work is fun. good work out. chokes are good to learn. arm locks are good to learn. pins are great to learn. good for cops. judo guys can do what they say [...]

Offtopic: Barack Obama speech

“A More Perfect Union”
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across [...]

Give it away

Came across a wonderful quote on the Abu Dhabi Combat Club site:
the purpose in life is to discovery [sic] your gifts; the meaning of life is to give them away
Very nice. Give it away. What a good attitude and words to live by.

Reducing falling risk and breakfalls

There is an excellent article on Mokuren Dojo about the #1 “self-defense” skill being breakfalls since the risk of falling is for most people probably much higher than the risk of having to defend oneself against an attacker. Along those lines, there are a lot of studies about taijiquan decreasing the risk of falling in [...]

Poor man’s vibrating platform

I still haven’t come across one of these vibrating platforms. However, I noticed my washer started shaking quite violently. Hmm. I sat then stood on it for a bit. I could see how the platform could work some stabilizer muscles without one even realizing it. My hamstrings did feel looser afterwards, too, with no stretching. [...]

faint peng

Next step. I feel a faint peng. It is pretty weak. Perhaps it’ll feel stronger in the next few weeks. I suppose that is building block number one so it’s a little progress. What’s weird is it feels stronger if I try to simultaneously focus on “sinking qi” to the dantian rather than just thinking [...]

More microcosmic orbit

Well after a few days it’s getting easier to feel (or imagine I feel) this “microcosmic orbit”. Sometimes it feels as if they’re discrete flows (now I need to look up meridian channels and so on) and sometime more vague like an overall wave. It doesn’t feel just like heat but depending where my attention [...]