The Tai Ji course includes a large content.

The first part is the energy work, QI Gong, every morning right after waking up, we run up to the top of the mountain to activate our bodies, once we are there, we proceed with the exercices of Qi Gong that we learned during the first week of the course, those Qi Gong exercises are good to cultivate the energy of your body, something very useful for people who have any kind of fatigue, personally it helped me a lot to adapt my body to the time change, 13h of difference, to the climate and the altitude.

The next step is meditation, we started with collective meditation, in group, for one hour each time, then individually.

To learn to breath in an adequate mode is of much help to organize our energy, something we will use to perform the Tai Ji form in Fire style.

The next step is to learn the basics of Tai Ji, static postures, painful in the beginning but of great reward, making our legs strong and rooted in the earth like an oak.

The basic strikes, long and short, and of the palm, teach us to transmit the power of our bodies in one strike, with the right use of the turn of the waist, legs, shoulders and wrists.
Kicks: straight, sideways, circular toward the inside and the outside, all are with a preliminary stretch of the legs to develop height, power and precision in the kick.

Working on the 33 movements of the Tai Ji form in Water style, a relaxed and tranquil way to perform the form and be aware of our bodies.

We complement our course with a class of massage, a very useful remedy to alleviate the pains produced by the hard training or any injury from the past that we prevents us from training.

The theory gives way to the practice, as our Tai Ji course would not be complete without the theory classes. A space of few hours during which we clarify our doubts and collect all the knowledge that Li Shifu offers.

Then comes the time to learn the Fire style of the Tai Ji form, the martial aspect of Tai Ji, the right power emission, Fa Li; we look for the adequate moment in our movements to transmit all the power without any interruption, in the same way that the string of a bow is tensed then released while shooting to transmit the potential accumulated energy.

The analogy that can be given is like heating water, combining the soft and relaxed movements of the Water style to make the transitions between movements, finalizing each movement in an explosive mode in Fire style. All this is like a human internal combustion engine, inhaling in a soft way and exhaling in an explosive way.

One more time we learn other technics to maintain this extraordinary machine that is the human body, each time we are more aware of its potential, of its workings at an energy level, for this we need methods to heal it, like : cupping, pricking, moxibustion.

Our course now has solid bases ready for next step, push hands, a sequence of technics that will be of much use in the martial application of the form, the constant contact with our opponent, adhering our hands to make an aggressor loose balance or to neutralize an attack.

Cheng Xue