welcome to alexdongtaiji.com

Hope you all are having a great summer. It's wet and cool here in NYC, feels more like spring. The cool weather is nice, we didn't have to use our air conditioner yet. But I wouldn't mind if we have more sunny days. As half of 2009 already passed by, it's been a good year so far. All our Taiji family are going well. Our group is still growing. I visited Italy and Croatia for the first time this year, although those two groups are still small, but I'm confident that they will grow and become one of our major schools. Several new instructors joint our Taiji Legacy, some from new territories like France (Eric), Denmark (Klaus) and Brazil (Luciana). We had a third instructor (Marie Pascale) from Greece and a second instructor (Andy) joint in New Hampshire, all in the last twelve months. The last but not least, one of my longest standing students Armand moved/moving to Spain and starting a school there. All these wonderful places you could be visiting in the future.

I would also like to share something that I shared with my Tuesday class here in NYC, which is base on my experience. Everything is balanced in Taiji and most only see certain things. There has to be a balance on how much basics one should work on before moving on. We all know what will happen if we don't learning the fundamentals correctly. But often people don't look at the other side. I often see people of all arts over worked on the basics. Year after year, they still working on the fundamentals. The foundation is the base for many things, it's not much if you don't add to it. Fundamentals is like taking the first step, doesn't matter how many time you take it, it's still the first step. After awhile, it's just the the first step. Or something we see often in these time of recession is a unfinished building. You can't stop building after you build the foundation.

In many things, especially arts that has the depth of Taiji, the foundation need to be re-enforced over and over again as you learn more depth. Some better fundamentals could only be understood with the combination of advanced practice. Those who only work on the basics can't understand the philosophy the way of a more balanced practitioner; not even the very basic things. Doesn't matter how advanced the practitioner, always re-enforced the basics. It's like not forgetting the simple things of life. It's good to have child like qualities, but if an adult act like a child is childish. I teach people with no experience and to many who have more than 20, 30 even 40 years of experience in Taiji, it's very important to know what to teach base on each individual and their experience.

Alex Dong