External

Lacking the necessary, balance, connection, coordination and flow, most students resort to local arm strength and brute force during partner work. But that is not taijiquan.

100 days

Without an established daily home training routine it is very hard to make progress in this Art. Your body needs time to shed old habits and become familiar with the new movements. The habit of training every day is necessary if you genuinely want to become an 'internal martial artist'.

Taoism

Religious Taoism has nothing to do with the contemplative tradition that spawned taijiquan and baguazhang:

http://www.arcworld.org/downloads/SCMP%20Daoism%2030%20April%202007.pdf

Martial emphasis

In order to apply the form, your form needs to be something worth applying. If your form is careless, clumsy, unbalanced and sloppy... then how can you expect your applications to work? They won't work. That is the sad truth.

A few other guys were watching a teacher of taijiquan. Never had I witnessed such deceptive power. He performed the Art with enormous dignity and force, and I realised I was seeing something which, although I could not understand, I had to respect. Mr Wang was at least fifty, and probably older. His power was fantastic.

I once asked Nakayama if he thought karate was the best of the unarmed fighting arts. He answered that he thought it was. In that case, I countered, what about taijiquan? Nakayama sensei laughed, and with a smile he said, "For human beings, karate is the best way. But there are some men who are superhuman, and perhaps a few of the taijiquan sensei are just that."

(C W Nicol)

Start of Training Year meal 2016