And they’re all in pain! When it comes to the aches and pains of moving around, you might be in pain from your day job, your vigorous exercise routine, or even a mindfulness practice that doesn’t involve any movement. Ever wonder why? The reason is exactly the same in each case: in your pre-conscious mind, you are basically trying to outsource your own movement patterns, from a body part that should be doing the job, to one that’s willing to, even though it isn’t designed for that job!

The next time you go to class, watch out for these 4 practice partners. While they all start out with good intentions, if you hang out with them too much, you’ll get sucked into their quirky habits and slow down your own progress. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

1. Checklist Charlie Checklist Charlie is the tai chi student who is forever stuck in his own head. Every time he practices, instead of feeling his body, he recites a list of stuff he is supposed to be doing.

Check out the updated “Code of Practice”. These are the rules you need to follow to make sure your practice is energizing, nourishing and rewarding in the long run. You must follow these rules 100% to the letter, unless you think that kind of rigidity violates either #2 and/or #4. Let me know what you think. Did I miss anything?

Check out this advice from Jack White on why you should limit yourself with formal constraints if you want to be creative. The lesson here for anyone who does tai chi, qigong, or meditation is “stick to your form”. Inside the limits of the form, you’ll find vastly more inner space to explore than you ever would in free-form movement.

In 2005 I started running Brookline Tai Chi. It was a big jump in responsibilty and workload, so I needed a practice that would match the new intensity. In turned to Xingyi for energy, drive, and focus:

When we started asking our students at Brookline Tai Chi about their home practice, we got a really interesting range of habits and preferences. Since then, we’ve been trying out different tools to help spark more home practice. Stepping back for a minute, I’d really like to know more about why you practice. Take a minute drop me a line (filing out the form below is private and goes right to me, no one else).

From the recent practice survey we conducted at Brookline Tai Chi and experiments I’ve been running in online learning, it’s become clearer and clearer to me that most people need some external motivation when they are learning a new skill. That’s not a judgment about willpower and motivation, it actually says more about the way we are wired for survival. In Z Health, we always talk about the way that the nervous system is at once the most plastic system – it can adapt to lots of different changes – and also the most stable.

Update: We’ve just released a new video-based course that shows you how to loosen up your hips and become stronger and more flexible! [CSSBUTTON target=“/fix-your-frozen-hips/” color=“66ff33”]Check It Out[/CSSBUTTON] Original Post: I know the weather is getting warmer, but as I look around, all I see are frozen hips. We just aren’t a squatting culture. We sit in chair, couches, cars. Look around the room you are in right now and see how all the furniture is designed.