Long, narrow stances are not combat stances. They were designed for performance.

The deep, horse stance is not for combat either. It is intended to build strength in the legs.

A realistic combat stance enables you to be pushed firmly from all sides without any loss of root.
It allows freedom of movement.
It keeps the joints and spine mobile and loose.

Find the stance that allows you to use your body in a smooth, natural, spontaneous fashion.
A stance that easily facilitates walking.

Partner work, form and other drills can teach students about reach and range.
Three useful solo training methods are easy to practice at home:

1. 3 tier wallbag
2. Striking post
3. Pushing peng (against a wall)

The wallbag ensures that your strikes are powerful and have no adverse feedback into your body.

Use a tree, column or doorframe as a striking post and practice stepping and striking.
With practice, you learn how much power you possess at what range, and begin to find the different ranges instinctively.

Pushing peng is about finding optimal alignment, relaxing and cultivating groundpath.
Virtually any posture from the form can be trained this way.

Ask your training partner to:

1. tug sharply on your wrist
2. kick your thighs and calves vigorously
3. push your torso from all sides
4. be awkward against your applications

Did you lose balance?
Did you need to tense-up or perform an action in order to compensate?

If your stability is lost or you lacked power, explore your stance, reach and range.

The key to getting stronger is to master the fundamentals.
Spend a lot of time just standing.
40 minutes once a week is great.
15 minutes a day is a must.

Moving qigong in its various forms will supplement standing, training the body to move in the correct way.
Form accomplishes the same.

Partner drills build up awareness and sensitivity.
The ability to affect another person.

A striking post or wallbag ensures that your strikes possess power, rather than just being empty.

The weakest part of any new starter is the mind.
Modern minds are lazy, distracted, eager for gratification and entertainment.

The calm, detached, logical, disciplined mind of a martial artist is very different to that of a 'consumer'.
We recognise that there is more to life than shopping, celebrity, fleeting fads and fancies.
Patience, tenacity, endurance... these develop a quiet strength.

We are not interested in pitting strength against strength.
Our aim is to evade strength, re-direct power and destabilise the attacker.

Instead of force against force, we circumvent.
We break the root.
We lead into emptiness.

You do not need to be immensely strong in the upper body.
The power will be coming from the ground, so stronger legs are more important.

Most people quit within a lesson or so, others within a year.
The hype surrounding modern tai chi leads new starters to have high ambitions and low commitment.

For some inexplicable reason new starters forget that using the body for hours at a time requires strength.
Combat necessitates concentration and stamina.

It is common to see new starters gasping for breath minutes after a melee exercise commences.
Their minds are reeling in confusion.
They are not breathing properly.
They are incredibly unfit.
Unprepared.

And yet these same people wonder why they are not being shown advanced-level skills...

The journey into self...

Taoism is concerned with the nature of our existence. It is not a religion in the common sense of that term.
It asks hard questions about our values, beliefs and perceptions.
It posits the possibility that much of our knowledge is based on cultural conditioning, rather than fact.

A serious journey into taoism will challenge the most ardent student.
There are no rituals, dogmas or practices to perform.
No worship.

The insights uncovered by your study will affect your everyday life.
Taoists try to appreciate, learn from and work with whatever happens in life, rather than impose order on a chaotic world.

Taking an unflinching look at who you are and how you live your life will go a long way to tempering your ego.
Taoism is not for people seeking a new 'lifestyle region'.
It is uncompromising.

As an off-shoot of taoism, zen also warrants some serious study.

Immersion in the way...

Mastering yourself is not so easy.
Taoism counsels you to remain quiet and anonymous, to avoid attracting attention.
You must become one with the tai chi, and one with everything around you.
The process refers to the ongoing loss of self and the immersion of your mind and body in tao:

1. No ego.
2. No opinions.
3. No aggression.
4. No attitude.
5. No pride.
6. No vanity.
7. No petty behaviour.
8. No cruelty.

Lose everything that stops you from being a pure, natural person.
Only when you have surrendered every thought, memory and pre-conception can you begin to feel humble and compassionate.
These qualities must be genuine, not artifice.

It may take a lifetime but it will be time well spent.

 Taoism furnished the basis for aesthetic ideals, zen made them practical.

(Kakuzo Okakura)