“Why Taiji?” – A student’s view

In December 2019, after much searching for a genuine taiji master, I had found three possible places. As I wasn’t sure about any of them initially, I decided to go and try them in person. 

Azi School of Taiji was the first school I tried.

At this point in time I was reading about Daoism and internal arts, so progressing to learning taiji, an internal art, was an obvious choice. I knew I had to find a “proper” teacher/master to guide me, and to move from studying online to training face to face.

As a healthcare professional with a Masters in Psychology, it is important to me to have a good relationship between student and teacher. 

On visiting the school, I found Master Yazi Liu is truly passionate about taiji. He was both welcoming and very traditionally Chinese. Although not fluent in English, this does not prevent him from imparting not only his Taiji knowledge, but also his Chinese culture to his students. It was as if I travelled to China to meet with a taiji master, greeted with a welcoming cup of Chinese tea.

After seeing him demonstrate the Zhao Bao form, specifically the Zhao Bao style I learnt two years later is known as “San He Yi Shi”, meaning three in one, I realised that the qualities that I was looking for were right in front of me. Internal principles, grounding, elastic motions and precision movements specifically for practical uses. 

This style is descendant from Hou Chunxiu (侯春秀, 1904-1985), and three in one refers to skills of the form, push hands and combat being interchangeable.

I could see that there was going to be a lot to learn, and to understand, but foremost, I was very lucky to have found this school and Master, and that taiji is the art I would be learning no matter how long it may take.

I looked no further and joined the school in January 2020. I began with learning how to relax my body while learning the form, progressing onto coherent “all body movement”, connecting the body parts together in movement but in a relaxed manner. All this before any serious start to learning anything about internal work.

Master Yazi Liu offers many concepts such as – energy is like a car and energy channels in your body are like highways; we must open and build highways first, before cars can drive there!

I am two years in, and I am constantly learning – to keep my body upright, movements need to be connected, all movements initiate from the centre, relax the upper body while keeping the legs strong, and much more. 

Though I always get constructive feedback, I do also get a lot of “that was rubbish!”. Master Yazi Liu has high standards and is truthful, and I like that very much.

In 2022 I entered the London Taiji Competition in the beginners category for the form demonstration. I realised then how helpful Master Yazi Lui’s constant reminders of taiji principles were. All the competing students from our school (including myself) gained gold medals in all the categories entered.

I realised that the more I learn to harmonize movement in my body, the more I can harmonise actions in my life.

The more I work on and resolve my physical weaknesses and bad habits through taiji, the more I work out my mental and emotional bad habits. And as I practice and change my body, my lifestyle goes through positive transformation as well.

Zhao Bao taiji under the training of Shifu Yazi Liu is nothing like what I had expected and I know that I still have a long way to go in my learning path. As he puts it, “it is a complex and complete art”. 

For me, each step I take is a very real step forward. It is not based on cheap talk, philosophy or catchy psychological concepts. Your body really changes.

This year, 2023, with Master Yazi Liu’s support, I am reworking and relearning the basics/foundation. I now know that if I don’t build my foundation well, I cannot progress forward and get to the energy work.  I have also started learning Chen style taiji which Master Yazi Liu also teaches.

With the help of my peers and senior students in the school, I get great constructive feedback so I never lack something to work on.

Finally, if you ask me what is the best thing I have done in the last couple of years, I would say that learning taiji is at the top of my list!

I feel lucky to be a student of Master Yazi Liu.