If you’ve ever thought about learning Taijiquan, you’ve probably realized that getting started has never been easier. Especially in Chen and Yang style, there are countless free instructional videos online guiding you through the forms step by step. That’s great. The internet has made an art that was once available only to a small group of dedicated students accessible to almost anyone with a phone or a computer. I’ll be creating my own instructional series as well, because I truly believe that knowledge should be shared.

At the same time, after many years of practicing, studying, and teaching, I’ve noticed that something is often missing. Most videos show you “what” to do. They demonstrate where to place your feet, where your hands should travel, and in what order the movements follow one another. What they don’t always explain is “why” and how it relates to the philosophy of Taiji. Why should your shoulders stay relaxed? Why does the movement begin from the center of your body rather than your arms? Why do two people perform exactly the same form, yet one looks effortless while the other seems to struggle through every movement? Those questions interested me long before I became a teacher, and they still interest me today. In many ways, they are the reason I wanted to create this series.

In my previous video, I asked a simple question: “Are Chinese martial arts really that mysterious?”

Everyone will probably answer that question a little differently. Some people see Chinese martial arts as something almost magical. Others dismiss everything as mythology. Personally, after more than twenty five years of practice, I don’t think the answer lies at either extreme.

For the most part, Chinese martial arts are not mysterious. They are simply incredibly detailed.

The deeper you go, the more details you discover. A movement that looked simple yesterday suddenly feels completely different because someone points out the position of your pelvis. A few months later, your teacher asks you to pay attention to your breathing. Then to your gaze. Then to how your weight moves through your feet. Later still, you begin noticing things that nobody even mentioned because your own body starts teaching you.

That’s what I find so beautiful about Taijiquan. It keeps unfolding.

One thing I don’t believe in, however, is making those layers into secrets.

Throughout history, many martial arts schools guarded their teachings carefully. Sometimes there were good reasons for that. A student first needed to prove dedication before receiving more advanced instruction. Certain concepts only make sense after years of consistent practice anyway, so introducing them too early would only create confusion.

But not every school worked that way.

Sometimes knowledge became a way of keeping students dependent on the teacher. The next explanation, the next exercise, or the next “secret” was always waiting somewhere in the future. Students stayed because they believed there was something hidden that would suddenly transform their practice.

Personally, I think it’s nonsense.

I don’t think knowledge loses value when it is shared. Quite the opposite. I think knowledge becomes more valuable every time it helps another person understand something they couldn’t see before.

That’s why I share everything I know with my students.

If I know a better way to explain a movement, I will explain it. If I discover a training method that helped me, I will share it. If one day one of my students reaches a point where I genuinely have nothing more to offer them, I’ll happily point them toward another teacher who can continue their journey.

My students don’t belong to me.

We all belong to Taiji.

And Taiji itself never stands still.

That doesn’t mean, however, that everything can simply be explained.

There is one thing that no teacher can ever give another person, and that is experience.

I can tell you everything I know about Cloud Hands. I can explain every principle, every detail of posture, every reason why one movement works better than another. I can demonstrate it hundreds of times from different angles. But I cannot hand you the thousands of hours that shaped my understanding.

I cannot give you the years I spent living in China.

I cannot give you the teachers who corrected me over and over again until a single movement finally started to make sense.

I cannot give you the mornings when training began before sunrise or the evenings when my body was too tired to climb the stairs after another six or eight hours of practice.

I cannot give you the competitions, the injuries, the frustrations, the excitement of finally understanding something that had confused me for months, or the conversations that completely changed the way I looked at Chinese martial arts.

Nor can I give you everything I learned by stepping outside Taijiquan itself. Sanda, boxing, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, wrestling—each of them taught me something different about movement, balance, timing, and human nature. None of those experiences replaced Taijiquan. They enriched it.

Every one of those experiences became part of me.

People often see the result, but they don’t see everything that shaped it.

And that shaping wasn’t always comfortable.

I don’t think growth has ever come easily to me. Some of the most important lessons I carry today came from moments when I was physically exhausted, mentally frustrated, or questioning whether I should continue at all. Looking back, I wouldn’t erase those moments, because they forced me to change. They taught me patience, humility, and perseverance in a way that comfort never could.

I don’t believe suffering is something we should seek out. But I do believe that meaningful growth often asks something from us. It asks for time. It asks for discipline. It asks for repetition long after the excitement of something new has disappeared. Sometimes it asks us to stay with discomfort instead of immediately walking away from it.

That isn’t true only in Taijiquan.

It’s true in almost everything worth learning.

The beautiful thing is that your journey will never look exactly like mine.

You’ll have different teachers. Different experiences. Different frustrations. You’ll notice details that I overlooked, and you’ll struggle with things that came naturally to me. Your practice will gradually become a reflection of who you are, just as mine became a reflection of my own life.

And that’s exactly how it should be.

If there’s one thing I’d like you to take away from this series, it’s that Taijiquan isn’t about collecting movements. It’s about learning how to observe. The movements simply give us a language through which we can explore ourselves. Every correction, every repetition, every mistake teaches us something—not only about the form, but about the way we think, react, and move through the world.

Over the next few lessons, we’ll use one seemingly simple movement: Yún Shǒu (Cloud Hands), to explore many of the principles that make Taijiquan what it is. We’ll talk about posture, relaxation, spinal rotation, weight shifting, breathing, and many other details that often remain hidden beneath the surface.

My hope isn’t that you’ll perform a perfect Cloud Hands by the end of this mini series.

My hope is that you’ll begin looking at movement differently.

Because once you learn how to notice the details, you’ll discover that Taijiquan isn’t hidden inside complicated forms.

It’s hidden inside the simplest movements.

And that’s where our journey begins.