Whilst in the Wu Ji standing posture

• Begin by aligning the skeletal body and relax the muscular body,
• Breathing naturally and focusing on the dan tien. Don't start moving until the body / mind is still.

When practicing mindful walking, use one or more of the following to help focus your mind in the body to be more present in the now.

​Ask yourself the following by listening to what is happening in your body when moving. Am I ......
1. Stablising the feet - This means are you feet flat and have softened into the floor. You must not have the uneven weight pressure in your feet (under each foot into the ground) by having more pressure on your instep or outer step. Leaning forward towards the toes or back to the heel can also have an uneven weighted pressure too. Make sure you feel what pressure / weight around the heel is the same under the ball of the feet. Move by using the ankle joint to feel this equal weight under the feet into the ground.
2. Stablising the ankles - This means you are not rocking or leaning while turning the waist and kwa. You do not move the ankle joint at all. If you do you'll the ankle joint will act like a hinge joint and make you lean forward or back while moving placing undue tension and stress on the joint.
3. Stablising the knee - This means you are using the knee joint like it's suppose to naturally work. When rising and sinking or in particular moving the waist / kwa you must make sure the knee's do not move in wards or outwards but follow the line of the foot and if it was following an ice skate blade under your feet not going beyond your toes or hyper extending when rising.
4. Stablising the hips & kwa - This means that the hips are level and you are opening and closing from the kwa (hip joint).
5. Stablising shoulders and hips - This means always maintain a perpendicular line form the hip joint to the shoulder joint when ever moving
6. Stablising the spine / head top - Always maintain the perpendicular line "central axis line" form the nei wan to hu yin (crown of the head to the perineum) 

The next few video clips are explaining effective methods of practice that have been posted before on my facebook site a while ago. I find these interesting to review from time to time. Enjoy :-)

I can remember the first few taijiquan lessons many years ago. It felt great attending class and I was bubbling with enthusiasm looking forward to my next lesson. Over the next few years I observed many students come and go. Many start taijiquan with the best of intentions and see the value of practicing the Art. However, along the way for various reasons many students eventually fade out from attending lessons. Some reasons are that they don’t have time to practice or it’s difficult to remember the moves. Taijiquan looks easy but without establishing a routine right away, your chances of perseverance is greatly reduced.

These are some recommendations from my own up and downs in practice that I will share over the next few blogs

1. Establishing a Routine: It is most important to establish a routine as quickly as possible while you are enthusiastic about practice. Otherwise, you will soon lose perseverance.
2. Take something out of your life’s routine: This is an important consideration and often overlooked and becomes our biggest mistake that stops practice. Like most of us, we already have a full life routine. Decide right now, what you are going to give up or take out of your daily routine. Therefore, you can put taijiquan practise into your life’s routine. Otherwise, you will quickly find you do not have the time to do what you initially set out to enjoy and quit!
3. Time: Mornings are the best as opposed to night. As you are more likely at night to tell yourself you are tired and will do practice tomorrow. Tomorrow’s practice will never happen if you do not start now. However, if you are definitely a night person then set a night time routine and stick to it. E.G. Finish whatever you are doing at say 10:30 pm then practice for 15 minutes. If your feeling very tired then you should stop what you are doing around 10 pm and then practice. Tell yourself that you are only going to do a maximum of 15 minutes. Set an alarm the moment you begin and finish when it goes off. That way, regardless of how good you feel, you have set up in your mind that this is a good thing to do. This sets up positive conditioning so you are more likely to be motivated to keep up your routinely practice sessions. *
4. Place: It’s important to have a place away from distractions and a little spacious so you don’t have to rearrange the furniture. Otherwise, it can be a block for practice in the future. This should not be too much of a problem, as you initially do not need a lot of room. If practicing in the outdoors do not practice in windy conditions. Head (if you’re bald like me), neck, kidney area and feet need to be warmly covered. Obviously if practising in a hot climate you do not need to be rugged up but these areas still need to feel warm and not cold during practice.  

* In one to two months, when you are in your routine you should practice mornings and night for 15 minutes so you are winding down in the evenings and nourishing your spirit in the mornings. Then in 3 months increase to half an hour.