🔔 Important 🔔 - Only comments on THIS THREAD will count toward the giveaway — make sure to post your check-ins right here each day. Check-ins posted elsewhere won’t be included. - The LAST DAY to enter the challenge is January 25th. The New Year, New Qi 10-Day challenge has officially started today! This is your daily check-in thread for the challenge — welcome and let’s flow into the new year together! 👇 Here’s how to check in each day 👇 ✅ Daily Check-In Instructions ✅ 1. Pick any practice video from the community. 2. State which day of the challenge you’re on (ex: Day 1, Day 3, Day 7). 3. How you felt before and after practice — just a short sentence for each. 4. Photo or video — snap a quick pic of your screen, your space, or yourself practicing. ✨Sample Check-In: - Day: 1 - Practice: Yin Yang Qigong - Before: Feeling tight and foggy - After: Calm, clear, and more open - (Photo or video attached) Complete all 10 days and you’ll be entered into a lucky draw — we’re choosing 3 winners. 🏆 1st Prize Includes 🏆 - $100 Gift Card - Premium Handmade Tai Chi Stick - Custom Rooted Alchemy Hoodie - 30-Minute Private Practice Session with Sonny Let’s do this!

We’re kicking off a 10-day Tai Chi & Qigong challenge designed to reset your energy, build consistency, and deepen your practice. This is a great way to start 2026 feeling grounded, energized, and connected — and everyone is invited. And yes… there are prizes! 🎁 Complete all 10 days and you’ll be entered into a lucky draw — we’re choosing 3 winners! 🏆 1st Prize Includes 🏆 - $100 Gift Card - Premium Handmade Tai Chi Stick - Custom Rooted Alchemy Hoodie - 30-Minute Private Practice Session with Sonny 🎟 How to Enter 🎟 - Pick one video from the community to practice each day. - Take a photo or short video of yourself practicing, along with a quick reflection on how you feel before and after (This will be shared in a dedicated post thread available starting January 11) - Do this for 10 days — and you’re in! 🗓 The challenge starts on January 11th. Final day to join the challenge: January 25th Let’s flow into the new year with clear energy, strong intention, and good Qi 💫

Do you have specific exercises for developing leg strength or does that just come with the practice?

I was reminded of the School House Rock song the other day and wanted to share a simple concept you can use to help remember and organize the principles you are learning. I was taught this technique by one of my teachers and it is closely related to how we also apply the Tai Ji tree method. Simply put, we use numerical organization to remember, categorize and organize material. When done correctly it can significantly improve how we interact with and understand our practices. It is a very simple and universal system that can be interacted with in individual ways. Here’s how we do it. First we have our most fundamental aspects represented by 0- Wu Ji/Song This is also the seed and root of the tai ji tree. 1-Tai Ji / Zheng This is like the trunk of our tree that supports the whole. 2-Liang Yi/Yin Yang Liang Yi means “paired or double intention’ which is basically like saying Yin Yang. This is almost like binary and can act as a complete system. The core of Tai Ji comes from these concepts. When we move past these then we can add in other core principles and methods as well as supporting concepts. Here is an example. 3-Three Treasures of qi, jing & Shen 4- Four Directions 5-Five Elements 6 - Six Harmonies 7-Seven Stars 8-8 Facets 9-9 Palaces Some of the above refer to specific principles while others are more general areas of study. For example, the 4 directions is a specific principle, the 5 Elements is a system of study. The numbering can also be used to ‘collect’ and ‘organize’ principles for further study. Getting back to the “Three is a Magic Number” theme here are some different principles and concepts that can be placed under that umbrella. Three Treasures of qi, jing, & shen The Three Bows of the body The Three Powers of Li, Gong & Jin The Three Methods of Qi Gong (posture, breath, mind) The Three States( San Ti in Chinese, also translated as three body, or diamond body) How is this helpful? It makes it really easy to remember and organize all the different concepts. It also helps us remember the proper flow of intention. It is no problem to place our intention and study all over the tai ji landscape, but it important to understand the logical and simple elegance of returning back to the simple construct of song & zheng as an integrating tool.

My goals are to complete memorizing the Tai Chi and Sword forms, learn Qi Gong and Xing Yi Five Elements sets, and improve my flexibility.