Tai Chi is a wonderful art, and it offers many benefits. But once we have learned the choreography (or even as we learn it) and have some understanding of the principles, it can be difficult to maintain a daily practice, as Mr. Lo once commented:

I tell people when they learn Tai Chi Ch’uan^† that patience is not enough because people always lose patience. So I tell people you have to have perseverance. We have never heard of people losing perseverance. Patience is good but it is not enough. After five years you can quit. I have seen people practice 20 years and quit. If you have 20 years patience, it is pretty good, but if you have it a lifetime, then we call it perseverance.

So how can we develop a consistent practice that we maintain for the rest of our lives? For myself, I’ve found it helpful to keep my practice fresh. There are many ways to do this, and you can tailor them to your current experience and the aspects of Tai Chi that have your attention right now. Here are a few examples:

• Pick one or more postures/transitions and practice them, starting a posture or two prior and continuing through the next posture after those you’re exploring (when you know it). This is particularly useful when working on new choreography.
• Place more emphasis on one of the three ‘legs’ of the ‘stool’ of form practice (form for flow, standing meditation, and standing practice / holding postures / posturing) during a week or two of practice, without completely neglecting the other two.
• Explore doing the form more slowly or quickly than your norm (but be careful about doing it too quickly or slowly).
• During standing practice / holding postures, mix up the postures you’re holding when doing them. Don’t forget to do both 100% and 70/30 postures on both sides.
• Pick a portion of the form and practice that portion, focusing on one (or more) of the principles.
• Get into a 100% or 70/30 stance and while holding it for a bit adopt different postures (adding in the appropriate arm shapes) to see if you feel your body changing as you do so. If so, explore why that is so.
• Pick a principle and emphasize that during your practice in all three ‘legs’ of the ‘stool’ of your practice.
• Pick a section of the form and for your “standing practice / holding postures / posturing” work go through that portion slowly and deliberately, pausing many times to hold and experience the transitions and the postures while focusing on the principles.

There are many other possibilities, so don’t let this list limit your imagination. If you don’t yet have a consistent daily practice, you may want to explore these ideas to help you develop one, focusing on increasing the number of days each week you consistently practice. With a little bit of creativity we can keep our practice fresh and help ourselves persevere.

† If you have questions about Chinese terms used, you may find About Chinese Terms helpful.