• Basic Exercises
• 3 Part Push Hands Form
• 5 Animals Form
• Sword Form

• Push Hands
• Da Lu
• Sword Play

Expansion on The Five Basic Principles of Tai Chi

• Expansion on The Five Basic Principles of Tai Chi (relax/sink, move from the waist, separate full and empty, straight spine, fair ladies wrist)
• Alignment: Central Equilibrium (Exemplified by the down up Turn, earth, yin and yielding) stand upright, balanced, uniform and even.
• Motion in Stillness, stillness in motion.
• Seven points one plane: 2 shoulders with 2 hips, the sacrum with the occipital lobe and point between shoulder blades. (like a plank of wood)
• In 70/30 postures Front knee goes no farther than the toe and back thigh is vertical.
• The foot should be flat like on tofu sinking into the ground with the whole of the foot not the edges.
• The sacrum needs to go closer towards the full hip and it leads all movement.
• The chest drops as the back rises.
• The tan tien should be treated like an egg that is easily cracked if too much force is applied.
• The sacrum moves into the bubbling well of full foot.
• Moving the Body as a Unit: (Exemplified by the Left right turn, Heaven, Yang or sticking)
• Reeling silk: as the weight sinks down it creates the movement in the hands, like two elevators one goes down creating root and the other goes up in direct proportion creating mobility.
• Turn Like an Axle Tree and move like a wheel. Once the wheel moves all pieces move together from the central equilibrium point at the bottom of the sacrum.
• Move both hips in unison continually. The full hip moving back while the empty one moves forward
• The sacrum turns the hips like a spiral into the foot that then functions through the fingers.
• Nine joints and one turn: wrist to ankles, knees to elbows, hips to shoulders. Each joint moves in dependence on the waist turning as its central hub. The smaller distal joints move in proportion to the central hub, with the proportions expanding as they move away from the waist.
• Connect the three bows: the spine, the shoulder to tip of finger, the hip to foot. Each bow has its own potential energy like a cocked bow which is able to release an arrow, but here these three bows move in dependence upon one another (ie. Through the joints).
• Connect the above ideas to full and empty in opposing hands and feet, like an old fashioned scale where one side goes down the other comes up.
• Movement/Momentum pendulum idea creates a swing with the weight shift and the turn. This idea keeps the body moving and light.
• Expand and Contract the whole body with the movements and the breath.
• Think of a spiral moving internally from bubbling well to tip of middle finger. (chan su chin)
• Taking some of the intention out of your movements. (Let the mind relax too)
• Inhale as you raise the hands and exhale as you drop them.
• Swimming on land
• Practice as if an opponent is there.
• Check your empty foot by lifting it before you shift.
• Find a ward off between each posture.
• Tui Shou: The Two turns become one.
• Stick Adhere, Join and Follow
• No resistance, no letting go.
• Don’t move the hands only the waist.
• Be humble, invest in lost, yield, and listen.
• Watch your opponents waist, if he is turning and your not, follow them where they want to go.
• Use only four ounces on your opponent and don’t let them put more than four ounces on you.
• Use the sacrum to yield and push.
• Yield 100% before you push.
• Try to bring the opponents attack back to your waist by using the down up turn and then giving back their attack by yielding and sticking.
• The yield should be like pulling back a bow and push like releasing an arrow, or like a sponge that fills up completely and spits out the excess.
• Don’t over extend the limbs past the body and keep upright.
• Watch the shoulders they telegraph tension in the waist