Regardless of the sport or art that you are learning, having a solid foundation is extremely important. This becomes obvious as you progressively advance in your skill levels and encounter obstacles. Someone with a solid foundation will be able to learn new skills and advance with diligent practice. But another person with a weak foundation will remain stuck, unable to break through, even hard work may not pay off..
Learning and practicing the basics is typically viewed as tiring, repetitive and boring, but I can assure you it is not a waste of time. The time you invest in your foundation will pay off many times over, the higher your skills grow, the higher the return.
Even when we know that our foundation is important, it can sometimes be difficult to persevere and persist in our training. In this article, I would like to share a few tips to help us make the best out of our basics training.
Build a Good Mindset
Any good coach or instructor will start off a class with warmups and basics. This is to prepare ourselves not only physically but also mentally. Never disregard these warmup basic exercises as unimportant, do not go through the motions without thought or effort, do not think that the moves are too simple and you already know it all. Having the right mindset towards your basics training is the first step.
From a physical viewpoint, it is important to perform simple exercises to warm up your body, getting ready for more difficult moves later without causing injury. It is also easier to focus on proper techniques and posture, so that it becomes natural and instinctive, which will then carry-over into more complex moves.
From a mental perspective, there is always something new to learn and there is always room for improvement. Just because you have some understanding in your mind, does not mean it will easily translate into your body actually knowing it. This is especially true for internal martial arts like Tai Chi, it takes hours and hours of mindful practice before a basic principle can be fully understood and demonstrated in your movements.
Choose One Aspect to Focus on
Tai Chi training can become complex as there are many movements, with layers of requirements and principles. Therefore basic exercises are the best to apply and practice something new or to improve in some specific area. We should not try to work on everything all at once, you end up not making any progress in any area. A better approach is to choose only one thing to work on and keep your focus on it.
A simple example would be posture. If the instructor keeps telling you to straighten your posture, then maybe it is time to focus on it in your basics. Since the movements are simpler and you already know them well, your entire focus can now be placed on ensuring your posture is perfect. This may sound easy, but you will find your mind wandering off after a while, or your body becoming tense with the intense focus.
The goal is not focusing on your posture in the basic exercises for just one class, you have to keep this up in every single class for potentially up to an entire month. So how do you know for how long you have to focus on your posture? You keep this up until your mind does not wander off anymore, after that, your body does not become tense anymore, and finally you can maintain your posture with very little effort. That means it has become natural and instinctive, you can now move to the next aspect to focus on.
Use Basics as a Sandbox
In the Advance Tai Chi classes, the concepts and principles taught are more complex, harder to comprehend and definitely harder to execute. Typically in a single school term, we are only able to focus on just 1-2 key principles. A lot depends on the individual student practicing and applying it on their own.
Basic exercises present the perfect safe environment to try out these advanced concepts. With movements being simple and repetitive, you don’t have to worry about remembering the next sequence of move, effort can then be spent on understanding and executing the advanced principle. If you are struggling to apply a principle in the basics, you will definitely have difficulty executing it in the forms. The goal is to gain some experience and confidence applying the advanced principle, before attempting it elsewhere, like in the forms or push hands.
It is also a good use of our time as we have to perform these basic exercises at the beginning of every class, no more excuses for not having enough time to practice. This also means our basic exercises are no longer boring, there will always be something new and challenging to work on.
The Importance of Basics
Building a strong foundation enables consistent growth and mastery of advanced skills, hence basics are the cornerstone of your Tai Chi training. With the right mindset, focused effort, and creative use of simple exercises, foundational training becomes an important pathway to unlocking higher levels of skill and understanding. If you are ever in doubt, or feel stagnated in your training, always refer back to your basics and start from there, you may end up finding your answers.
