Practice routine at home

Juan Botero · Post by **Juan Botero** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 11:15 am

Hi all,
I wonder if you could give us some guidance on the practice routine at home.

Thank you very much for your comments.
Best regards,
Juan

Linda Heenan · Post by **Linda Heenan** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 5:58 am

Hello Juan. I will answer your first question and leave the rest for others:

Ideally one would practice for at least one hour a day. What if you only have 15 or 20 minutes free. Is it better to do something than nothing, or better wait until you have enough time to do it correctly?

Practise every day. Some is better than none. Do the bit you have time to do, correctly. Don't rush just to get through more parts of your practise in limited time. It is better to do a small thing well, with focus on improving one small aspect of your practise. You may find, as you continue in taijiquan, that practising is so satisfying, some parts of your busy schedule are worth dropping, just to get more time. Even if your time is so dictated by necessities that you only have 20 minutes, use it. Practise every day unless you are sick or injured.

black matt · Post by **black matt** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 10:56 am

Linda,
Very well stated.

Juan,
At nine months of taiji, I would just say practice as much as you can, and as correctly as you can. In your first year of practice, you're going to do a lot of things wrong- I don't think there's any way around that. The important thing is to notice what your errors are and correct them as much as you can, and not get frustrated if you feel like you reached a plateau, or had a bad day or week, or just can't get your body connected, etc. Like anything else, the more you practice and the more correctly you practice, the better. In my experience, none of the other questions really matter- just practice.

Juan Botero · Post by **Juan Botero** » Mon Jan 29, 2007 11:12 pm

Thank you both.
Juan