Taiji Makes me a Better Man Everyday

Taiji makes me a better man every day.

Someone suggested I should write about learning Taiji in Taiwan. I'm so very out of the habit of writing daily. But I'd love to share.

There are countless reasons why I love Taiji. I do it both out of love and necessity. It's fun and it keeps me physically and mentally healthy. I've had many hobbies, but no other hobby has had the effect of improving my life so much. So I'll try to write about the different reasons I love Taiji and the myriad ways it makes me a better man and can help others. And maybe I can post some stuff about being an ESL teacher and living in Taiwan too.

I feel I should point out that I am by no means a master of Taiji. I don't know if I'm blessed with the correct physical and mental gifts to ever achieve such status. But striving toward that end has put my life on a wonderful path. So far Taiji has never let me down. So I'd like to try to give back.

Again, I'm totally out of the practice of writing, so I'll just start out with posting my daily workout. We'll go from there. Partly this will help me keep track of what I'm working on. I know a lot of people practice a lot harder than I do. But here's what I do: 

Daily Home Taiji Routine:

Wake up—Tchoung Ta Chen’s 24 posture stretching form. Eddie's push hands stepping drills. Earthstone’s stepping drill.  Slow TKD basic blocks, kicks and punches. Dalu left and right. Cheng Manching Sword form.

I don’t always do the whole thing in one chunk. I just try to get it all in between waking up and going to work.

Before bed—Cheng Manching 37 posture form (alternating days right side or left side), ward off turning exercise work way up to four reps of 100 each for a total of 200 on each leg and 400 total. Increase by 1 every day. Started at 25 reps. Currently on 31 per time for a total of 124. Between each rep of between 31-100 times do an animal line stepping drill (Dragon, Bear, Monkey, Bird, Tiger). Then stretching (sitting hip stretch, V stretch, straight legs touch toes, butterfly, quad stretch, working up to the splits), . Standing against a wall with two arm positions for 10 minutes, standing double weighted with two different arm positions for 10 minutes. Short four directions Peng, Lu, Ji, An form. Practice “push” fajin 25 times per side.

I usually do this workout in conjunction with preparing my dinner. Food is cut and prepared before the first half of the workout. Veggies and or noodles boil while I perform the second half of the workout. When I finish it’s time to eat!

If I do any of my daily exercises during the day at another time (at a class or with friends) I cut them out of my home routine.