Long ago, a master swordsmith and his most senior student met near a small stream.Each of them brought one of their finest blades.To show his teacher the quality of his craft, the student stuck his blade into the stream.As leaves floated past, they were neatly cut in two, he held […]

I was visiting some friends the other day and was asked if I wanted to go to a Tai-Chi class. “Of course” I said, that would be great. And it was. I hadn’t been in a group setting in years so this was going to be interesting. It turned out […]

Zhang San Feng… is accredited by many as the founder of Tai-Chi. As such, many stories and tales are attributed to him. No doubt some are true, or at least have a kernel of truth about them. Some, likely are more apocryphal in nature. Nonetheless… a good story is a […]

The snake is one of the seminal animals of Tai-Chi. The imagery is of a snake (duh) wrapped around a tree branch, lowering its head, and about to strike. As with many Tai-Chi postures there are a variety of very different ways of performing this based upon what lineage you […]

So there is some confusion where the name comes from and what it is supposed to mean. I read somewhere that the name was derived from carrying baskets of water at the end of a long pole. The more generally accepted meaning however is that of depicting a riding crop. […]

One of the classic components of Tai-Chi is called Cloud Hands, Move Hands Like Clouds, or Wave Hands Like Clouds, or some such variation of that. The movement implies that your hands are moving like floating clouds in a smooth and continuous fashion. I think all Tai-Chi lineages incorporate it, […]