Raymond Lee (Tai Chi Ray) is a Tai Chi teacher, martial arts practitioner, and writer who has been teaching and sharing Tai Chi in New York since 2017. He began practicing martial arts at the age of seven and grew up in a family with more than five generations of involvement in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Drawing from traditional martial arts, years of teaching experience, and a continuing interest in the human body and modern science, Ray explores Tai Chi through structure, coordination, awareness, natural movement, and the integration of body and mind. His work seeks not only to preserve traditional principles, but to make them understandable and meaningful in contemporary life.
In Tai Chi, the hand may be where a movement becomes visible, but it is not necessarily where the movement begins. Learn how shifting weight, working with gravity, and connecting the feet to the rest of the body create whole-body movement.
Song (鬆) is usually translated as “relaxation,” but that can be misleading. In Tai Chi, Song means learning to release unnecessary tension while preserving structure, balance, readiness, and the ability to respond.
“Move like water” is more than a poetic description of Tai Chi. Water offers a practical model for continuous, adaptable, connected movement that follows gravity instead of fighting against it.
“Swimming in the Air” is the phrase I use to describe a way of practicing Tai Chi: moving as if the air could give you the same feedback as water. The idea began with an unexpected afternoon in a swimming pool and became one of the central concepts in my Tai Chi practice.
Yi (意) is often translated as “intention,” but in Tai Chi it means more than thinking about a movement. Through Cloud Hands and traditional teaching, Raymond Lee explains how Yi gives movement direction, structure, and purpose.
A mirror can help you see the shape of a Tai Chi movement, but traditional practice asks a deeper question: can you feel where your body is without looking? Here is why learning Tai Chi eventually moves from visual imitation toward internal awareness.
Going deeper in Tai Chi does not necessarily mean learning more techniques. It means discovering more within the fundamentals—relaxation, structure, intention, balance, coordination, and awareness.
Why write about an art that is meant to be experienced? This first Note explains why I began recording what Tai Chi has taught me through practice, teaching, nature, and life.
Progress in Tai Chi is not simply about learning more movements. Staying with a few important movements can reveal layers of structure, coordination, awareness, and meaning.
A childhood afternoon in the swimming pool became one of the most important lessons in my Tai Chi practice. This Note explores what water can teach us about structure, coordination, breathing, and moving through resistance.