I love my body. And, I'm always working out. I'm an exercise freak, be it cardio, weights, t'ai chi or yoga.
I've trained myself to find time to exercise relaxation of the body. I have these programs - I just listen to the instructions, and they're simple. Sometimes you just hold your hand tight and keep your breath - you hold it, hold it, feel all the tension, and then relax.
I was a hyperactive kid, and it took awhile for me to find the right teacher. My master was a Shaolin kung fu teacher, but he also taught tai chi, Chinese medicine, brush painting - he was adept at all facets of Chinese culture.
People think that I work out but it's all t'ai chi.
Well all tai chi has the martial aspect to it, a lot of people don't know, a lot of the teachers won't show it, or they do show it but you don't really learn it, what the application is.
I read poetry every day. I look at it as an exercise, a kind of T'ai Chi for writers. It teaches economy of form.
I meditate twice a day, T.M., and do yoga and tai chi.
I do yoga. I do tai chi. I do a lot to keep my body and my spirit together so I can work.
But I found tai chi when I was studying with Leung Shum, who teaches Eagle Claw and Wu Hao.
If someone teaches you alignment and - I'm not a tai chi expert by any stretch - so interviewing me about tai chi is kind of the cart before the horse - but just from my point of view as a student, it's simply that Master Ren can show you the relationship of power, stance and form.
The aim of tai chi is not to strike first to gain dominance over an opponent, but to wait and hit at the right moment.
Well, everybody does something, some people race cars, others collect stamps, I find tai chi to be philosophically, aesthetically, physically and spiritually fascinating.
I've been doing Tai Chi on and off for 20 years. The fundamentals of all martial arts are the same.
I've found that from my point of view, the Chen style contained many things that I knew on a fairly superficial level from Eagle Claw, and that had Chen elements of what seemed to me the soft in Eagle Claw.
My mum lives in Boston; she's famous for teaching wushu and t'ai chi. So from when I was young, my mum and aunt were like: 'You're training; you're not playing baseball or football.' Training every day was normal. Later, when I was almost a teenager, Bruce Lee became my idol.
If there were a ritual dance of the androgyne, Tai chi as performed by this master could be that dance. It is neither a masculine dance nor a feminine dance. It has the strength and grace of both.
It's t'ai chi every time. I'm using your positive energy, and I'm blowing off it. See, most guys can't push, they got to lean. When they lean, I spin.
Initially I was very drawn to the Tao Te Ching, the Taoist philosophy. It was helping me deal with the balance of these external and internal issues with my chess life. Tai chi is the martial embodiment of Taoist philosophy. Initially, I had no intention of competing in the martial arts; it was just the meditation.
I loved going to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial in Taipei to watch all the old Chinese people doing tai chi and practicing kung fu. The monument was made of white marble, and it was beautiful. Sometimes my dad and I would practice with them.
What we did with 'Tai Chi Zero' and 'Tai Chi Hero' was break down the martial-arts genre and make it younger, hipper, and kind of cooler for the younger kids.
Performing tai chi in space - it is comfortable; we got more outer space chi.
If you take anything I say with any seriousness whatsoever, go study Yang style tai chi. It will make you live longer.
Breathe through your movements.
