In hsing-i, movement is initiated from the hands and the body follows. In tai chi, all movement orignates from the waist. In bagua, it’s the foot that operates the body.

Bagua Walking: Climb Like a Cat

In bagua mud stepping, your foot lands flat and sinks into the ground as the toes extend forward. Then, you release the pressue and pull the back foot forward with the front foot. Learn more in my how-to video:

Happy walking,
Paul

Upcoming bagua courses:

21-22 January 2012 | Brighton (Seminar)
Cultivating Heaven + Wind Energies in Bagua Zhang: Palm Changes 1-3

11-12 February 2012 | Ulm (Seminar)
Cultivating Yin Energy in Bagua Zhang: Earth (Double) + Water (Sixth) Palm Changes

6-11 May 2012 | Crete, Greece (Annual Island Retreat)
Dragon + Tiger Medical Qigong Energetics with Applications in Tai Chi + Bagua

7 July 2012 | London (Seminar)
Wu Style Tai Chi + Bagua Single Palm Change: Form + Content Upgrade—Freestyle!

11-12 August 2012 | Brighton (Seminar)
Cultivating Earth + Thunder Energies in Bagua Zhang: Palm Changes 2-4

18 August 2012 | London (Seminar)
Circularity in Wu Style Tai Chi Short Form + Bagua Zhang

25-30 August 2012 | Cologne (Summer Retreat)
Integrating Body, Mind + Chi in Gods Qigong + Bagua

1-2 September 2012 | Ulm (Seminar)
Bagua Dragon Body Exercises + Palm Changes 5-6

© 2012 Paul Cavel—All rights reserved. Links are appreciated, but copying or distributing any portion of this article without written consent is prohibited.

Any physical and/or energetic exercise can carry risks. Do not attempt these exercises if you have any physical, emotional or mental conditions that may make you susceptible to injury.

Mud Walking for Beginners

In mud walking, the classic bagua stepping technique, when you put your foot down in front of you (to take a step), you want to ensure it lands flat. Then, it will slowly sink into the ground, allowing the toes to literally grow out of your foot. This growing doesn’t happen because your bodyweight pushes them out, but rather due to intermediate lengthening and pulsing methods that you’ll eventually want to incorproate into your bagua practice. In fact, this lengthening in your toes happens when your bodyweight is still in your back leg/foot.

Banishing the Bagua Bob

In bagua you want to create a concertina effect, which will prevent you from peeling your foot off the ground (as in normal heel-toe walking) or rising up as you pick up your foot to step forward. You know if you’re doing the bagua bob if your head goes up and down as you shift your weight and step.

In the how-to video below, I provide a basic overview of the stepping technique and I’ll give you an exercise you can do with a training partner to ensure you keep your pelvis level while you Walk the Circle.

Happy walking,
Paul

Upcoming bagua courses:

21-22 January 2012 | Brighton (Seminar)
Cultivating Heaven + Wind Energies in Bagua Zhang: Palm Changes 1-3

11-12 February 2012 | Ulm (Seminar)
Cultivating Yin Energy in Bagua Zhang: Earth (Double) + Water (Sixth) Palm Changes

6-11 May 2012 | Crete, Greece (Annual Island Retreat)
Dragon + Tiger Medical Qigong Energetics with Applications in Tai Chi + Bagua

7 July 2012 | London (Seminar)
Wu Style Tai Chi + Bagua Single Palm Change: Form + Content Upgrade—Freestyle!

11-12 August 2012 | Brighton (Seminar)
Cultivating Earth + Thunder Energies in Bagua Zhang: Palm Changes 2-4

18 August 2012 | London (Seminar)
Circularity in Wu Style Tai Chi Short Form + Bagua Zhang

25-30 August 2012 | Cologne (Summer Retreat)
Integrating Body, Mind + Chi in Gods Qigong + Bagua

1-2 September 2012 | Ulm (Seminar)
Bagua Dragon Body Exercises + Palm Changes 5-6

© 2012 Paul Cavel—All rights reserved. Links are appreciated, but copying or distributing any portion of this article without written consent is prohibited.

Any physical and/or energetic exercise can carry risks. Do not attempt these exercises if you have any physical, emotional or mental conditions that may make you susceptible to injury.

In the following how-to video, I demonstrate a trick for releasing tight and tense shoulders, necks and upper backs. When exercising the arms be sure to let the elbows go back more than to the side. The more they go back, the more you engage the shoulders and thereby open up the tissues (of course staying within 70% of your maximum effort). The release can be quite profound and, if practised regularly, can increase your range of motion. More importantly, over time, the tissues can become so bound that they begin to cause and compound pressure on the vertebrae at the back of the heart. The more free and unristricted your internal organs are, the better they can operate. So it’s not just the obvious physical pain that limited range of motion that bound tissue can cause, but it can diminish your overall health and wellbeing.

Although I teach internal arts (qigong, tai chi and bagua), where engaing the shoulder blades is a fundamental principle, you can incorporate it into any movement form. However, within the internal arts, Circling Hands (the adjunct, beginners practice for Heaven + Earth Qigong) and Tai Chi Circling Hands are particularly good for unwinding the tension in the neck and shoulders, and releasing the nerves with their soft, gentle and reptitive motions.

Check out my how-to video for a demonstration of what you’re looking to achieve:

Upcoming Courses:

18-19 February 2012, Stuttgart: Pulling Silk in Tai Chi + Tai Chi Circling Hands

24 March 2012, Kentish Town, London: Pulsing in Circling Hands

3-5 August 2012, York: Pulling Silk in Tai Chi + Tai Chi Circling Hands

© 2012 Paul Cavel—All rights reserved. Links are appreciated, but copying or distributing any portion of this article without written consent is prohibited.

Any physical and/or energetic exercise can carry risks. Do not attempt these exercises if you have any physical, emotional or mental conditions that may make you susceptible to injury.

Paul Cavel Practising Tai Chi Chuan: White Crane Spreads Its Wings Posture

Poor posture and repetitive movement using improper body alignments have resulted in back, neck and shoulder pain that has become a pandemic in the West. It’s not only affecting adults, but our youth as well. The symptoms are caused by prolonged sitting, usually starring at computer or television screens, and recurring micro-movements operating keywords, remote controls, clicks on the mouse and more. With each passing year, we are only becoming more reliant on technology, so although prevention is key, the solution (at least in part) must also include ways to expel tension and pain once it has become lodged in the body.

Qigong Exercise for the Spine

Qigong, or exercise aimed at stretching open the body’s insides as opposed to only the outer muscles (of which tai chi is a type), is an excellent exercise for releasing both long-term and daily tensions that become bound in the body. They involve slow, gentle and repetitive movements that calm the nerves and allow your blood and other bodily fluids to circulate more strongly. You could think of the bacteria and sludge that accumulates in a pond versus a smooth running stream that sweeps away all the gunk as it twists and drifts along.

One of the key tenets of qigong and tai chi training is maintaining a good connection through the spine. Although there are many reasons for it, one is to make whole-body movement possible, so that the spine and surrounding soft tissues get a good stretch.

How to Align the Spine

In the following video, I’ll show you how to maintain a good connection through your spine when moving. You always want to ensure that your pelvis doesn’t tip back or the ribcage doesn’t move forward of the pelvis. When this happens, the ribcage begins to “float” and causes erratic movement that can be called many things, but certainly not connected! Disconnected movement is a major no-no in internal arts training (qigong, tai chi and bagua).

Basically, the body gets divided into an upper half, everything from the waist up, and lower half, everything from the waist down. There aren’t many bones in this middle area (midriff and belly) so it’s quite squidgy, which can cause the lumbar vertebrae to twist or shift out of alignment. What you want to achieve is the opposite—a straight spine.

To start, stand in alignment and settle in, then:

• Drop the tailbone (coccyx);
• Raise the spine; and
• Release the belly while keeping the spine open.

Unless you have an injury (in which case take it slowly and only move to about 30-40% of your maximum effort), you will likely find this relatively easy to do while standing still or doing a vertical squat.

However, when you add turning, common to most qigong, tai chi and bagua forms, it becomes much more challenging because the dropping of the tailbone really digs into the body. Many qigong and tai chi practitioners, to one degree or another, simply arch their back and stick out their buttocks to continue the movement. However, this breaks the connection to the spine and thereby any possibility of whole-body, integrated movement.

Maintaining Your Healthy Spine

To be sure you maintain the connection in your spine, go slowly and don’t try to move beyond your 70-80% (if you’re healthy, less if you’re not) of maximum effort. Keep the upper body in alignment with the pelvis and don’t allow your pelvis to tip. If you notice either happening, you know that you’ve exceeded your comfortable range of movement and are now in the zone of diminishing returns.

It’s the slow road that leads to success, so by reducing your movement today, you make possible the promise of a healthier spine that keeps the aches and pains at bay for tomorrow and all time.

Check out my video for demonstrations and an exercise you can try with a training partner to get accurate feedback:

To learn more qigong exercises for your spine, check out my Standing Qigong + Outer Dissolving Course in Kentish Town on 28 January 2012.

© 2012 Paul Cavel—All rights reserved. Links are appreciated, but copying or distributing any portion of this article without written consent is prohibited.

Any physical and/or energetic exercise can carry risks. Do not attempt these exercises if you have any physical, emotional or mental conditions that may make you susceptible to injury.

Paul Cavel in Wu Style Tai Chi's Single Whip Posture

Over the last two decades or so in the tai chi game, I’ve noticed that many practitioners have unrealistic expectations about what they can achieve in short timeframes. Many times, students seek to learn a form and gain a high level of skill within a period of a few months, which of course is impossible unless you’re a rare genius in mind-body-chi. The irony is that those who let go of these expectations are usually the students who advance more quickly and, more importantly, experience the deeper health and healing benefits for which tai chi is renowned.

Learn Tai Chi

There are three primary layers beginners want to focus on when learning tai chi, which are:

• Formwork–the shell or movements;
• Neigong–the specific internal content; and
• Circularity–that which allows the full potential of neigong to come into play within the form.

This hierarchy is important as each previous layer must be developed and become solidified in order to achieve results from the next, more complex layer.

Tai Chi Form

Tai chi begins with learning a form, which is a style (i.e., Wu, Yang, Chen, Hoa and combination styles) as a long (typically 100+ movements), short (20-30 movements) or medium form. The shell consists of:

• Choreography–all the stepping, turning, weights shifts and arm motions.
• Basic principles–relaxing through movement, which, for example, is done by using the mind’s intent and moving from the kwa, as well as others.
• Proper methodology–although there are too many to list here, some examples include keeping the shoulders down, dong open and the body sung at all times.

Regular and accurate practice of the form creates a shell or containment field for the neigong to be brought to life. It allows the basic movements to become embedded in the cellular memory of the body, which frees the mind to focus on ever-more refined levels of detail. In time and with enough practice, you can arrive at the point where most of what you have learnt becomes embodied. One way to think about embodying your form is putting your body on autopilot, leaving your mind free to focus on very specific threads of internal neigong content.

Depending on the type of form you choose, long, medium or short, this learning process could take many months or years. My teacher, Wu and Yang Style Tai Chi Lineage Holder Bruce Frantzis, has said that in China the masters often don’t consider someone a true tai chi practitioner until they have at least 10 years experience.

Until you reach the point where you can go on autopilot–i.e., you don’t have to think about the movements–there’s little to gain from advancing to more complex considerations in your form because your foundation will not hold. I’ve seen many practitioners try to circumvent or rush the process, but ultimately they only undermine the results they’ve achieved in the earlier stages. Most of these people give up practising just before the real health and healing benefits become a reality. So be content to stay at whatever level you’re at and don’t worry about external goals that seek to pull you away from your reason for taking up tai chi in the first place.

When you do achieve the level where your form operates without a bunch of mental gymnastics, then the focus once again shifts to stretching out the body. This includes both the outer muscular frame as well as the skeletal frame, allowing you to release generalised stress and tension and long-term, bound tension localised in specific areas of your body. As this gentle, stretching, pumping action takes place, blood flow increases and the nervous system is lulled into a state of relaxation, which thereby stimulates the flow of chi.

After a tuning in period, many new tai chi students report that they experience old aches and pains vanishing, dead or numb areas waking up, and most commonly that their overall sense of well-being and energy level begin to increase. Some students have major breakthroughs, such as the disappearance of sciatica or carpel tunnel syndrome. Although the clearing out process is highly individual and is dependent upon your state of health when you start practising, all of these benefits are made possible by practising your tai chi form consistently and accurately.

Neigong Content: How Tai Chi becomes Internal Exercise

Once your skill at performing the movements of your tai chi form increases to a reasonable level, the body begins to operate as one basic unit rather than a collection of jumbled, out-of-sync and discombobulated parts. A smooth quality as you transit from one movement to the next perpetuates the flow, which reinforces autopilot mode. Again, your focus will begin to shift because less effort is required by the mind to maintain it.

Although neigong training is not set in stone and there is no best hierarchy for learning and developing your skill in the neigong system, two streams that commonly come into play are:

• Opening-Closing (also known as pulsing)
• Yin-Yang tissue stretches

Opening and closing is the alternating rhythm of expansion and condensing between two counterparts. In early neigong training, opening and closing techniques focus on the space between the joints (e.g., hands, wrists and elbows) and cavities (e.g., armpits, kwa and backs of the knees), which facilitate relaxation in the body and mind.

Yin and yang tissue stretches allow you to divide the body so that either the yin (front, inside) or yang (back, outside) surfaces can be stretched while the other remains completely relaxed and inactive. This creates a looping of energy at the level of wei chi (in the fascia located between the skin and muscles), which thereby boosts the body’s natural defence mechanisms.

Activating and engaging the pulse or yin-yang tissue stretches requires fine motor control through hyper focus on very specific parts of the body. This cannot be achieved if the mind must devote attention to where to step, turn, shift, or move the arms. The hyper focus on very specific areas of the body is absolutely critical at this stage because it is precisely what allows the deeper kinks and blocks to be uncovered and eventually released.

The deep relaxation gained from the pulse along with the boosting of the flow of wei chi begins to open up the body at a more profound depth. This in turn allows you to penetrate the shell (muscular and skeletal frames), which thereby provides access to the deeply rooted condensed energy inside the body. If you have to stop and think about formwork in this process, you will severe your ability to maintain the stream of consciousness necessary to unlock that which is hiding under the level of your awareness.

Once you contact these deeper blockages, you can then tune your form, and the weave of internal neigong content that derives it, towards that which will be most helpful in releasing them. When you do, the health and healing benefits naturally arise. There isn’t any specific outcome you can expect, but whatever restraints you become in tune with and aware of can be melted and vanished for good.

The condition and vitality of your internal organs is ultimately what makes you more or less healthy. It’s not surprising that the deeper tensions affect your organ base in some way or another. Releasing these tensions can therefore have a profound effect on your well-being. If someone uses their fingers to apply pressure on your windpipe, when they finally let go, how good is it going to feel? To start, you’ll be able to breathe more easily! The freedom many students experience internally as they let go of these bound and restricted areas in their organs is similar, and possibly even more profound.

Circularity in Tai Chi

Circularity is a major point of the internal arts because it’s an efficient method for supercharging the circulation of blood and other fluids (e.g., lymph and interstitial) and chi. However, until the formwork is solid and the essential neigong content is present, circularity has little effect. Conversely, when the form and content is online and your practice is truly internal, then you can really boost the functioning of your whole system.

Every time you stop at one posture or another during your form, you effectively apply the brakes to any flow you have managed to generate. This diminishes momentum and prevents you from moving along the continuum towards greater and stronger chi flow that in turn further stimulates production and circulation of all the other bodily fluids–that which creates incredibly efficient body function and, equally, deep and long-lasting relaxation.

This deep relaxation and cleansing the body of harmful toxins and waste by-products go hand in hand. As your nerves release and maintain a calm state, your body can operate more efficiently and thereby disperse stagnant chi. All you are left to do is feel better.

Start + Grow Your Tai Chi Practice

Each of the three layers of tai chi training require many months and years of dedicated practice to achieve its full potential. Rushing ahead not only precludes you from enjoying the real health benefits, but also takes the fun out of the process. There’s no need to try to become a tai chi master to experience the tremendous and wide-ranging benefits of practising tai chi anyway!

Without an accurate form, the content has no containment field; without the neigong alive and operating consistently, circularity does little to boost your overall results. So take your time and focus on executing the movements of your form correctly before moving on to move advanced practices. Then, as you weave in neigong content, it will reinforce your investment in a solid foundation, so that circularity can pay you real health dividends.

Attend My Tai Chi + Neigong Intensive in Kentish Town, London

I rarely teach tai chi choreography since most students benefit more from learning simpler forms unless they make a commitment to learning a tai chi form or, for existing practitioners, focusing on developing neigong that can be applied to any formwork.

However, this year I will offer a Tai Chi + Neigong Intensive in London where you can learn the 27-move Wu Style Short Form along with the essential internal content over a period long enough (three months) to actually absorb the material. The first class starts 14 January, so contact us soon if you wish to participate. (See my 2012 schedule for courses that will include tai chi applications for existing stylists.)

Happy practising,
Paul

© 2012 Paul Cavel—All rights reserved. Links are appreciated, but copying or distributing any portion of this article without written consent is prohibited.

Any physical and/or energetic exercise can carry risks. Do not attempt these exercises if you have any physical, emotional or mental conditions that may make you susceptible to injury.

Paul Cavel Demonstrates the Shoulder Stroke (Left) Movement of Wu Style Tai Chi

A few months back I posted some how-to videos to help you balance your body in your qigong, tai chi and bagua practice, which I elaborated on  in a course I offered on Tai Chi Circling Hands and Gods Qigong in Crete last year (see below).

3 Steps to Addressing Imbalances in the Body

First of all, many people are unaware of just how imbalanced their body may be. It could be that one side (left-right) or one half (upper or lower) of the body is more bound, less flexible or has a limited range of motion, or is generally less comfortable than the other.

Step 1: Start by doing a couple of experiments to see if both halves and sides of your body are equal in strength, range of motion, flexibility and comfort. You may find big differences as a result of impact trauma or from repetitive behaviours that have caused damaged and taken root over a long period of time. However, you may also find day-to-day osciallations as a result of the work you’ve done recently or for one reason or another. The point is, you want to do some tests and find out if one part of your body is compromised in comparison to all others, especially its counterpart.

Step 2: Once you know which side or half of your body is the weakest, then you want to enquire further about what exactly is your range of motion and comfortable level on that side/half.

Step 3: In any movement, go right up to the point where you feel strain or your nerves start to bite, and make a mental note of it. (Please move slowly and don’t use too much force or try to push through any feeling of pain.) This is your marker for 100% effort, which you never want to engage as you do any internal arts movement. Instead, you want to stay well behind this point, only going to about one-third of this range. This is true not only for the weak area, but also the dominant counterpart. If you continually exert your full 70% of effort on the dominant side, then the weaker side can never “catch up,” so to speak. So you want to play to the 70% of your weaker side.

Relaxing the Nerves

During any movement, the intensity rises exponentially with every degree of increase in movement or effort. Many students find it difficult to go at a slow enough pace that their bodies can actually handle without revving their nervous system. While it may force the muscles and fascia to stretch faster for a greater, more immediate external result, it actually causes the opposite of what we seek to achieve in the internal arts: relaxation in movement, stillness and transitions between the two. Over time, the effect of clamping down and arousing the nerves will build in a glass ceiling and your overall practice results will be greatly diminished. Pushing through internal resistance is not sustainable.

Staying well behind the point where you activate any feelings of discomfort, hardness and especailly pain will pay dividens in the long game, and allow you to restore health and balance in your body. Watch my video to learn a few tricks:

Happy balancing,
Paul

© 2012 Paul Cavel—All rights reserved. Links are appreciated, but copying or distributing any portion of this article without written consent is prohibited.

Any physical and/or energetic exercise can carry risks. Do not attempt these exercises if you have any physical, emotional or mental conditions that may make you susceptible to injury.

Remember Tibet!

This festive season, it’s a good time to give pause and remember those less fortunate than ourselves. Of course, it’s even better if we can become co-creators in making the changes we would like to see in the world.

Some organisations make that easier for those of us with busy lives who aren’t sure where best to focus our efforts. Four Corners Foundation is one such orgnaisation. Founded in 1976 to help preserve the unbroken transmission of the Vajrayana tradition, the people involved work tirelessly to help Tibetan people in need.

If you’re interested in learning more about their work and what you can do to make a difference, please visit http://www.fourcornersfoundation.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6&Itemid=55.

Thank you for reading and happy practising!
Paul Cavel

(Please note: I am not affiliated with the Four Corners Foundation except as a personal sponsor.)

To learn more about the theory that underliesLongevity Breathing techniques, click here.

Happy practising,
Paul

To learn more about Paul’s next Longevity Breathing course in Kentish Town, click here!

© 2011 Paul Cavel—All rights reserved. Links are appreciated, but copying or distributing any portion of this article without written consent is prohibited.

Any physical and/or energetic exercise can carry risks. Do not attempt these exercises if you have any physical, emotional or mental conditions that may make you susceptible to injury.

Tai Chi Partner Exercises

The video snippet below was filmed on Crete earlier this year as part of my Five Elements in Qigong retreat. The discussion was focused on ways to restore balance in and revitalise the body. One method for fretting out imbalances and getting real about your practice is training with a partner.

Partner exercises accomplish three important goals:

Engages the Part of Your Mind that Wants to Achieve

The observer effect dictates that the sheer act of observation will influence the phenomenon being observed (Wikipedia). This is true for science and the neigong system. Having a partner watch your movements engages the part of your mind that wants to achieve. So you try your best, and in that moment, possibly paradoxically so, more easily expose your weaknesses.

Now this process might give your ego a knock, but that’s not really the purpose. The point is to get real about your practice, repeatedly refining, deconstructing, and reconstructing the component pieces in endless weaves and patterns to better your skill and literally embody neigong.

Provides a Framework for Accurate Feedback

The fact of the matter is, unless you are a genius in mind-body-chi, you will not achieve a deep and integrated internal practice without feedback. Finding an experienced instructor who is willing to mentor you–one with at least 10 years of qigong training under their belt–is one thing, but training partners and peers also play a critical role.

In the beginning, many corrections are based on postural alignments–either while in static postures or moving. Since these are relatively gross adjustments, they are easy to see even without a trained eye. For example, if you are holding up one shoulder in the air, it is easily recognisable if only someone looks.  A training partner can give you invaluable feedback and use methods, such as tapping an area of your body without feeling to wake up your feeling awareness, as well as many, many other methods.

If you have imbalances, and let’s face it everyone does in one place or another to varying degrees, then proper alignments will actually feel uncomfortable at first. Many students can’t believe how awkward a balanced standing posture can feel like, for example, because we are great at subconsciously playing to our strengths and avoiding discomfort.

Eradicates Distortions In Your Body

It’s not that people are unintelligent or cannot see what is obvious, it’s that their proprioception is off-kilter. The distortions in your body-mind-chi have come about for very specific reasons. You may favour one side or another or hold tension in a particular place of your body more so than others.

Partners might identify areas where you subconsciously hold tension and help you link with these places. In time and with practice, you can train your awareness and eventually eradicate your weaknesses. At the end of the day, this is one of the primary directives of internal arts training: dealing with and tonifying imbalances before they devolve into illnesses or injuries that compromise your health and well-being.

Partner exercises are a great method for staying grounded and focused on the specific areas of practice you need most.

Training with a Variety of Partners

One benefit of attending live courses is that it gives you an opportunity to work with many different partners. If you only work with the same person, you can synchronise with your partner, entering into some sort of unwritten agreement that “if you don’t mention this, I won’ t mention that.”

Remember the purpose of internal arts practices is to fret out weaknesses and grow from the experience. Training is about opening the body from the inside out, always seeking that middle ground between the ideal and what is possible in that moment–without depleting your reserves. This allows you to train another day and sustain any level of success you achieve in all aspects of your life.

Happy training,
Paul

Visit my training calendar.

© 2011 Paul Cavel—All rights reserved. Links are appreciated, but copying or distributing any portion of this article without written consent is prohibited.

Any physical and/or energetic exercise can carry risks. Do not attempt these exercises if you have any physical, emotional or mental conditions that may make you susceptible to injury.

Paul Cavel Adjusts Marco, Energy Arts Bagua Instructor

Okay, I’m going to make this short and sweet because this has got to be one of the most popular email questions of the year:

I advise new students to mind their 70% of effort in mind-body-chi, and save 45-minute to hour-long practices for many months (or even years) down the line, once you have a solid foundation in neigong. Otherwise, you may injure yourself or build up too much internal resistance and stop practising.

Go with the flow and do whatever “clicks” for you yet try to build and sustain a regular practice. Try not to let the calculating mind prevent the inherent ebb and flow of your practice to be restricted or stifled. A naturally occurring phenomenon will drive your progression forward as the intuitive side of your mind-brain takes the helm and navigates the unchartered waters of your internal arts practice. Some days you might find that you naturally extend one aspect of your practice as you tune into a particular thread. It may or may not reduce the time you spend training overall.

All things considered, beginners are looking to initially practise 10-20 minutes a day, 3-5 days a week. Let this routine stabilise before increasing the length, frequency or intensity of your practice. Otherwise, the cunning mind of the intelligent person can find any excuse not to train as a rebound from the push. A gym sells 10 times the number of memberships that the facility can actual handle because too many people drop off after the initial thrust.

Don’t be one of those who give up. Start slow, increase your pace gently and play the long game to reap the real health benefits for which the internal arts have been well-known for millennia.

Want to to get started training? Click here.