How do I know if my form is correct when I practice at home?

Tai-chi-formA common criticism of online training is that you don’t get the hands on correction of teacher.

The thing is, no matter who you are or where you find your teachers, you are going to spend quite a bit of time practicing by yourself.

Even during a live class a teacher can only stand over you make corrections a small percentage of the time. (unless you’re doing 1 on 1 private lessons.)

So you must learn to self correct.

What is correct form?

There’s no such thing. Correctness is a matter of degrees and it can always be more or less correct.

The key is to focus on one principle at a time.

There are dozens if not hundreds of principles and energies that can be trained with your form.

Which one are you working on today?

For example:

In Tai Chi Level 1 we start students with a dozen different principles that they can train in the form.

The very first is basic energy connection & alignment.

So the first thing students learn is how to feel good alignment and how to feel when the energy is connected and when it isn’t.

Then students can practice the form and the instant their alignment breaks they feel the energy cut off. This allows them to immediately stop, identify the source of the error by feel and fix it.

By immediately correcting errors before bad muscle memory is built you can rapidly speed up your development.

Once you’ve put sufficient work into one skill you can move on the next and first skill will be ingrained into your body at a much higher quality than it was before.

You can apply this training method to any internal energy or skill. Make sure that when you learn a new internal skill, you study it enough that you have a way to feel when it’s correct and when you make errors.

The method for checking energy connection & alignment is taught at the beginning of Clear’s Tai Chi Level 1.

(Level 1 Basic Skills Lesson 9)

…and you’ll see this same principle applied with all the energies and principles taught in Clear’s Tai Chi.

You can try out Clear’s Tai Chi Online for only $5.

Details are here:

https://www.cleartaichi.com/tai-chi-online

Comments

  1. I agree. There is no true correct form. Once you’be learned the techniques, then practicing on your own becomes a personal journey towards perfection and enlightenment. I’ve trained traditional Japanese Karate for over 40 years and incorporated long form taijichuan in 1976. Each day I train is different, learning something new, personal, self fulfilling. Kanpeki-o…to seek perfection is a goal where only practice can achieve.

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