Tai Chi Ray's Journal
Tai Chi is not simply what I teach. I help people rediscover themselves through Tai Chi.
Moving beyond the outward form of Tai Chi to explore how we feel, organize, and use the body and mind as one.
What is Tai Chi Ray's Journal?
Tai Chi practice may begin with copying movements, but it does not end there.
Through structure, coordination, awareness, breathing, martial principles, and attention, we gradually learn to feel and understand the body from within—and eventually to move with the body and mind as one.
Tai Chi Ray’s Journal is where I record what I have learned, practiced, and shared through years of teaching Tai Chi—not only how movements are performed, but why they work, what they can teach us about ourselves, and how the principles of Tai Chi can extend beyond practice into everyday life.
Explore Tai Chi
Four paths into the practice, principles, and experience of Tai Chi.
Learning & Practicing Tai Chi
How do we learn Tai Chi beyond simply memorizing movements?
Body & Awareness
What can Tai Chi teach us about our own bodies?
Tai Chi Principles & Martial Arts
Why does Tai Chi move and respond the way it does?
Tai Chi Philosophy & Life
What can Tai Chi teach us beyond movement?
New to Tai Chi Ray's Journal？
Begin with these four Notes. Together, they introduce the questions at the heart of how I understand, practice, and teach Tai Chi.
01 — Why I Started Writing Tai Chi Ray’s Notes
TAI CHI PHILOSOPHY & LIFE
Why write about Tai Chi in the first place? This opening Note explains the purpose of the Journal—and my effort to find a voice between tradition, personal experience, and contemporary understanding.
02 — Swimming in the Air
BODY & AWARENESS
What can water teach us about Tai Chi? Through the spine, whole-body coordination, and breathing, this Note explores how Tai Chi begins to change the way we experience and organize the body.
03 — First Step: Don’t Chase After Movements
LEARNING & PRACTICING TAI CHI
Learning more movements is not necessarily the same as learning Tai Chi. This Note asks us to stop accumulating forms for a moment and begin understanding the body from within.
04 — Second Step: Fundamentals, Fundamentals, Fundamentals
LEARNING & PRACTICING TAI CHI
Return to the fundamentals—and discover how relaxation, structure, intention, coordination, and awareness can deepen even the simplest movement.
How I Approach Tai Chi
My approach to Tai Chi begins with traditional practice, but it does not end there.
I am interested in three perspectives that can speak to one another without being confused with one another: traditional Tai Chi principles, lived experience through practice and teaching, and modern ways of understanding the human body.
Tradition gives us a framework. Practice allows us to experience and test it. Modern knowledge can sometimes help us describe aspects of movement, coordination, perception, and the body more precisely.
I do not believe that traditional ideas need to be turned into scientific claims in order to make them valuable. Nor do I believe that preserving tradition means refusing to ask questions.
This Journal is where those conversations meet.
Learn Tai Chi with Ray
Reading can introduce an idea, but Tai Chi ultimately has to be experienced through the body.
I teach Tai Chi in New York City through group classes, private lessons, and workshops. My teaching emphasizes the same principles explored throughout this Journal: body awareness, coordination, balance, relaxation, intention, and learning to move as an integrated whole.
Whether you are completely new to Tai Chi or have practiced for years, the goal is not simply to collect more movements. It is to develop a deeper relationship with the movements you already have.
