practical training guidance
Clear, experience-based guidance for training Chen Taijiquan in practice, not theory, aimed at reducing detours and sharpening what actually matters.
Key Insights for Effective Training
Chen Taijiquan is a deep and demanding system. While there are no shortcuts, there are countless detours: ways of training that feel productive, look correct, or even feel “internal,” yet quietly lead the body away from the underlying method. This is especially true when learning in the modern environment where context is fragmented and feedback is often limited.
This section is dedicated to practical guidance for staying on track. The articles here focus on how to train: how to structure training, what to emphasize in self-directed practice, how to avoid plateauing, and how to interpret traditional instructions in a way that actually reshapes the body over time.
Rather than presenting a rigid curriculum, these writings function like waymarkers within the Chen Taijiquan landscape: footprints, signposts, and points of reference drawn from long-term training within the Chenjiagou Lao Jia lineage. They are intended to support practitioners who already have a learning environment, helping them navigate their journey more effectively, whether in solo practice, form work, standing meditation, or partner exercises.
If the other territories of this site map the landscape of Chen Taiji, this section is concerned with the path under your feet; how to walk it steadily, without wasting years going in the wrong direction.
Ongoing Practice Journal
In this section, I document my personal practice and how it evolves over months and years. These entries reflect a clear and ongoing training path: what I’m working on, how my focus shifts, and how specific qualities are being refined through sustained practice.
This journal tracks the deepening of an already established thread: the gradual clarification of body method; alignment, connectivity, elasticity, and nervous system regulation as they are trained day after day. Many of the most meaningful changes unfold slowly and only become obvious over time. This journal exists to record that accumulation, not as theory, but as a lived, embodied path of practice.
