8th palm change


I find the syllabus is well-structured and offers carefully designed and enjoyable exercises which aid application of the palm changes. Learning the purpose of each of the movements gives a real insight into overall strategy of baguazhang.

In addition to creating an accessible website containing information relevant to learning baguazhang, Master Waller also takes the time to explain concepts in detail in class with the added benefit of being able to demonstrate how these principles can be applied martially.

The emphasis on evasive movements in baguazhang has been particularly helpful in overcoming my tendency to freeze-up during self-defence scenarios and instead I'm learning to relax and respond.

Although the underlying principles are similar to tai chi, baguazhang feels very different. Adapting your mindset to take into account multiple opponents is difficult but very rewarding from a martial perspective.

Bagua is proving to be a great opportunity to escape from the trappings of individual techniques and instead concentrate on realistic improvisation of self-defence applications in high-pressure situations. I particularly appreciate the focus on deception and evasion.
(Dominic Hine)


The teacher is responsible for the class.
They are responsible for the safety of the students.
They are obliged to preserve and maintain the quality and pragmatism of the art.

Therefore, the values and concerns of the teacher are not those of the student.
The student cannot relate to what motivates the teacher, and must trust that the instructor has their best interests in mind.


The reason for this e-mail is to congratulate you on your website content. Your approach is very impressive & thoughtful. You remind me of Master Lee, and that is the greatest compliment I can give. Good Luck with your school. If I were living in Newcastle I would love to attend your school.


Combat drills

Two person combat drills are significantly harder than the preceding training. 
They require skill with qigong/neigong exercises, form and partnered drills.
Everything must be incorporated in order for combat drills to work successfully.


Mrs Waller

The pledge

The student makes a public pledge and then signs a declaration.
They have now entered a master/student relationship.

This is a life-long commitment and should not be taken lightly.

Partnered drills

Beyond the rudimentary physical requirements of tai chi, the student must learn how to actively use the tai chi principles that are outlined in the tai chi classics.
This is accomplished through training a wide range of partnered drills and sensitivity exercises.

Once again, it is assumed that the student is proficient with the qigong/neigong exercises and has some growing sense of form.
Partnered drills are a challenge, and the student cannot be thinking about connection whilst trying to remain sticky, soft, sensitive and yielding.


Good examples

Students who make strong progress through our syllabus are the people who train a little every day and attend as many lessons as they can manage.
They pass belts regularly and show a good school spirit.


Form trains the body to move in a particular way.
An increased harmony of body parts is expected; with the motor skills being challenged by new coordination requirements.

The skills acquired through qigong/neigong training, coupled with form enable the student to use their body in a more controlled, disciplined way.
Slowly, habit patterns will emerge.

Form training is not the time to be thinking about fundamental connection, alignment, structure, balance etc - these skills are trained during qigong/neigong practice. 
Beginners use the form in order to extend and explore the skills acquired through practicing the basic qigong/neigong exercises.
Deficiency with these basic exercises will result in limited skill with form.


Basic qigong/neigong exercises

Beginners focus upon 'hard qigong' exercises in order to gain simplistic coordination.
This enables them to move the body in a gross way.

Tendons and ligaments are stretched and basic connection principles are introduced.
Significant attention is placed upon alignment, positioning, structure, balance, mobility and good body use.
Optimal usage is encouraged.
Every action should be natural, comfortable and not exaggerated.



Lineage/indoor student status is conditional.

If the students fails to live up to the standards imposed by the teacher, the individual will cease to be an indoor student.


When your teacher demonstrates something for you, you are obligated to practice it,
or else you may invoke the following consequences of your own free will:

1. Your teacher may not correct you because your actions have shown that you did not really want to learn the skill.

2. You will not achieve the skill.

3. If you learn the next stage of the skill, it will be weak because it has no foundation.

4. Your skill will not rise to a high level until your attitude changes.

(Bruce Frantzis)


A 90 minute weekly class is not very long; and many topics are addressed in the course of an evening.
Workshops provide an opportunity for supplementary study.
Complex drills and exercises required focus.

The entire workshop explores a single drill.
This intensity of practice leads to significant improvement.


Enjoy the bagua and can see that it is definitely a plus for footwork and different tactics from tai chi including multiple opponents. Self defence seems to be emphasised, but so far, I have not experienced enough to really see the depth in it. Tai chi is so connected with the drills & neigong etc and I don't really know where bagua is going. However, my trust in what you teach remains high, as always.

 (Tim Middleton)


Don't be lazy...

Students who are seeking to use tai chi in combat cannot afford to be lazy.
One repetition a day of small san sau takes 30 seconds.
There is always time for practice.
It is a matter of individual priorities.

Peter Southwood asserted that students are often lazy but seek to blame the instructor or the school for their own lack of progress.


Lessons are taught in a small group involving individual, partner and group practice. Students are all at different stages of learning the palm changes. Each person receives tutoring and correction appropriate to their level of practice. Partnering helps me to see how a palm change can be used and where to focus attention.

 I think that it is good that the student who wishes to learn bagua with our school is asked to show competency for the first palm change. This is on top of their tai chi training. The palm changes are hard and you have to be serious to learn them. It isn't like just learning another new, fancy form.

 (Rachel Waller)

Sifu's friend Roberto


Bogus claims

The bai shi ceremony is typically a private event, and very few people attend.
A teacher may or may not be formal about lineage.

However, their acknowledgement is always public: everyone in the school knows who the lineage students are.


Dear Lord, 
Thank you for giving me the strength and the conviction to complete the task you entrusted to me. Thank you for guiding me straight and true through the many obstacles in my path.  
And for keeping me resolute when all around seemed lost.  
Thank you for your protection and your many signs along the way.  
Thank you for any good that I may have done, I'm so sorry about the bad.  
Thank you for the friend I made.  
Please watch over her as you watched over me.  
Thank you for finally allowing me to rest.  
I'm so very tired, but I go now to my rest at peace.  
I fought the good fight, I finished the race, I kept the faith. 

(Book of Eli)


Tai chi partner work


Training once a week in class, then going home and doing nothing is perfectly acceptable if this is how you want to train.

If you attend irregularly and do not train at home, your progress will be slow.
You will struggle to overcome ingrained body habits.


Chinese watercolour


Tai chi was never meant to be a weekly exercise.
Ideally, it should be trained daily.

Students do not need to set a lot of time aside but there should be some commitment to training between classes.



Yang tai chi and Jiang baguazhang share certain characteristics (which is why we chose to study and teach them):
  1. Stances are rounded and natural
  2. High stance
  3. Martially viable
  4. Good vehicle for chin na, jing and shuai jiao
  5. Nimble footwork
  6. Alive, agile body use
  7. Energy based (jing) not bone/muscle (li)


Classes provide an opportunity for both practice and learning.
The student works through known material, receives corrections and refinement, and is also exposed to new material and insights.

In order to capitalise upon the learning opportunity, it is important to arrive early and have an enthusiastic attitude.
If you struggle to remember things, consider taking notes.


The opportunity

Master Waller offers every martial student the opportunity to become an indoor/lineage student.
The student must meet certain criteria:
  1. A good level of skill
  2. A pattern of ongoing progress
  3. A nice relationship with both the instructor and other students
  4. No attitude problems/ego/arrogance
Suitable candidates will be told what lineage entails.

Cultivating peng

We explore a number of exercises designed to foster peng.
The main focus is upon loose body connection, mind and softness.
Inherent peng is a question of habitual practice whereas manifest peng is a matter of intent.

Many beginners can manifest peng but tense-up when inherent peng is tested.
Tensing-up indicates inexperience and fear.

The loose, springy, effortless strength associated with peng is one of the main focal areas for beginners.
It is not difficult to accomplish but some degree of commitment is necessary.
The presence of intrinsic peng means that every taijiquan movement has substance.

Staff drills


Listening to your body

Finding the correct position for peng is very important.
You must listen to your body.

Ask another person to apply pressure through the limb and into your centre:
  1. Maintain the position without tensing-up
  2. Feed the incoming power into the ground
  3. Make adjustments to your frame in order to optimise the channelling
  4. Consider: weight distribution, position of the arms, elbows, waist to weighted foot relationship, relaxed sternum/hip kwa
  5. Open or closed centre?
Compensatory tension or crumpling indicate poor awareness.
Listen with your body.
Listen to your body.

Posture testing



My teacher Sifu Woo said to me once, "If there's a million people doing tai chi in Tiananmen Square, nine hundred ninety nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine aren't doing a damned thing". It's no different there than here.

(Paul Gale)


High cultures are actually just subtle ways of concealing reality, so that pretentious people can pretend that they are above the level of the lower classes, whether animal or human.

By now we are all too good to go crudely banging a bull on the head with a mallet or sticking a knife through it and tearing it apart and eating it. All that is done for us way off in the stockyard, and the meat comes to us in the butcher shop as a completely neutral-looking thing called a steak.

But steak is something wrapped-up, packaged. Almost nobody picks up a steak and thinks "Poor cow." A plastic-wrapped steak doesn't even look like a cow, and it doesn't remind you of one in any way - that's culture.

(Alan Watts)

Knife escapes


Quotes from known instructors

Many good instructors are aware that tai chi is becoming a lost art:

Many excessively bounce around learning the next 'new' form or movement set without ever extracting the real internal value from any of them.

(Bruce Frantzis)

Over the centuries many variations of the movements have been taught, but provided the principles are adhered to there is no need for the student to doubt the authenticity of what he is being taught.

(Paul Crompton)

The way most people do tai chi, it's not a martial art. They could never use it the way they're doing it. Everything's in their hands, they just fill in the rest with fantasy talk.

(Paul Gale)

If all you learn is a lot of forms, you just become a good dancer.

(James Wing Woo)
Students of the martial arts in the West feel that they must use their art to fight, or at least to compete, to show people how good they are. In tai chi, this is unacceptable, because that is against the principle of tai chi.

(Gabriel Chin)

A small error in principle at the beginning of training will have greater consequences as time goes on.

(Yang Jwing-Ming)

You may know two hundred different martial arts but what is the quality of your movements? It's still just movement, it doesn't matter how many forms you know.

People with wisdom will use a tool properly, but a person with lower knowledge will recognise only one function of the tool. In the same manner, internal martial arts can be used for many functions because you use the same tool. This training method is only one tool, but it has many different uses.

You need to use one form for practice and include everything in it - mind, structure, movement and qi. If you can easily do all of these within each motion, that is the internal martial arts.

(Luo De Xiu)

Westerners have some very good ideals. One is that they like the guts, they want to go to the heart of the matter and get the real stuff. They don't care about all the fluff. How does it work? Tell me how it works, then I'll do it.

The Chinese way is to have faith, do it a long time and maybe I'll tell you how it works.

(Allen Pittman)

Most people are on a path with a dead end. They train ten years and they end up with nothing.

(Paul Gale)

Form applications



If you doubt the credibility of your instructor, ask for proof:

· How long have they been practicing tai chi?
· Who was their teacher?
· How long have they been teaching?
· Is the instructor following a syllabus?
· Do they possess any kind of recognised teaching qualification (i.e. PGCE)?
· Can they demonstrate these discreet skills effortlessly and spontaneously against a range of unrehearsed attacks?
· Do they understand 13 postures, 4 ounces, yielding, softness, neigong?
· Are they able to explain their skills and then demonstrate what they mean?
· Can you attack a high-level student and see what skills they possess?
· Can you talk with a high-level student about the teacher, the art and the class?

Learn how to judge the quality of the teacher.
Be polite about it, and accept that you may get roughed-up.
A skilled instructor should leave no doubt in your mind that they know what they are doing.

Hard qigong



A tai chi instructor must possess certain skills.
Whilst every instructor may choose to interpret and apply the art according to their own personality and preferences, these underlying principles are a constant.
The instructor must be well-versed in the tai chi classics.

They must possess a comprehensive understanding of:

  1. Shuai jiao (grappling)
  2. Chin na (seizing)
  3. Jing (energy expression)


Knife drills


Tai chi partner work

What makes you think that you are fit to instruct?

To quote Plato: "The knowledgeable one knows the ignorant, having once being ignorant; but the ignorant one does not know the knowledgeable, never having been knowledgeable."
Only the most naive individual decides for themselves that they are an instructor.

It is for your teacher to decide when you are fit to instruct.

Manifest peng

Although peng must be inherent at all times, it can also be expressed. Manifest peng delivers power upward and outwards.

Imagine a Swiss ball? One of those large round exercise balls?
If somebody were to roll you off to one side using a Swiss ball, that is what manifest peng feels like.
It has give and is springy, yet it is also substantial.

Ever martial application in taijiquan relies upon both inherent and manifest peng.

Penetrating defences against a knife


Long distance learning

No matter what anybody tells you, you cannot become a tai chi instructor courtesy of a long-distance learning course.
Think it through...

If the certifying body is based in America and you live in the UK, how much of your teaching can they witness?

To teach English in a UK school, you need:

  1. English GCSE
  2. Literature A-level
  3. Literature BA degree
  4. English PGCE
How many years will it take to acquire these qualifications?

To drive a car, many lessons are required... but are you now fit to teach others how to drive?
Can you speak fluent Spanish after a year of lessons?
Can you teach Spanish?

Tai chi is a complex martial art.
It takes between 3-5 years for a keen student to get a black belt in any martial art.
After you have passed 3 black belts you may be considered fit to instruct, providing you have the necessary disposition and skills.

Stretches & joint work

Long jing

Way of the Warrior

Perhaps a little dated, with some mispronounciations (tao instead of dao): but still worth watching:

It would have been interesting to see interviews and footage featuring more than just the one instructor.

What are the 16 treasures?

No, we are not simply going to give you the answer. Finding out for yourself will be vastly more rewarding.

Any tai chi instructor is capable of telling you.
They are the 16 key facets that underpin everything else you do.
16 things that make tai chi work.

All of our students are taught the 16 treasures.
But only the thoughtful, sensitive students sees them. 

Without an understanding of their worth, the student may just walk straight past. Then, what has been learned?

Documentary from early 1980's



How does a person come to be a charlatan?

Probably not on purpose.
Well-meaning individuals seek to learn and teach tai chi.
Unfortunately, they have no real idea what tai chi is or what the training constitutes.

Instead of adhering to a long-term commitment of training, practice ad study, the person looks for a shortcut.
They seek something that fits their own idea of tai chi.

Consider the old adage: "There's a sucker born every minute and two to take em"
There are disreputable organisations that will take advantage of naive people.
Maybe they are simply giving people what they ask for... but this is not tai chi.

Beginner's power

A beginner has no power to speak of.
Much of what the beginner brings with them to class is actually an impediment to progress.

Very few of the taijiquan skills will emerge in the beginners syllabus.

Learning small san sau for the green belt grade is a test of basic skills.
Without the required foundation, a student will struggle to gain power as they proceed through the curriculum.

Freeform baguazhang against a knife



Mean spirited?

You may think that it is mean spirited to warn you about charlatans.
How is this so?

If somebody warns you that it is raining outside, and suggests that you wear a raincoat, is this mean?
If it is cold and you are told to wrap-up, is this cruel or unfair?
If you are told to watch your step because a stone lies in your path, is this not considerate?

Imagine that you have a serious illness and seek the reputed health benefits of tai chi...
Who would you rather study with: a) a skilled, experienced instructor, b) a well-meaning amateur?

Training any exercise system or martial art under the guidance of a charlatan is dangerous.
It can lead to injury, and will inevitably cause mistakes and misconceptions.

Inherent peng

Pressure can be applied to any part of your body and you should feel substantial.
This substance is tangible but not rigid in any way.
You must always yield when pushed and never resist the incoming force.

The connection must exist without conscious effort.
If you need to employ effort, then the peng is not inherent and will not be there in every movement.

Inherent peng needs to be increasingly subtle. Work at yielding to even the slightest degree of force.
Let your body soften, relax and find internal space.
The greater the yielding, the more scope you have for application.

Seek to sustain central equilibrium without any use of force.

Long jing

Flower from our garden

Controversial approaches

A few instructors are teaching a weird mish-mash of tai chi and some other art, such as karate.
These classes are pitched as being innovative, realistic, pragmatic.

Yet, mixing tai chi and external practices together does not improve the quality of the tai chi.
Rather, it diminishes the value of the tai chi component.
The instructor is demonstrating their inability to understand and apply tai chi using the tai chi principles.
They have opted for a short-cut, and are filling-in the holes in their knowledge using concepts and approaches from other martial arts.

There is nothing wrong with developing your own art if that is your desire, but you should not call it 'tai chi'.


Common approach

Many modern tai chi classes offer a watered-down version of the art.
It may be more properly called "tai chi-style exercise" or "performance art tai chi".

Containing none of the tai chi martial elements, and no understanding of the classics or the principles, how can it be considered 'tai chi'?



Be gentle with your body. Treat it with care.

High repetitions and exotic stances are not taijiquan training methods.
Train with mindfulness.
With attention.
Pay attention to what you are doing, and train it slowly, thoroughly and cautiously.
If anything feels unpleasant, something is wrong.


Chinese watercolour

Modern tai chi

Tai chi is often imitated by people who like the idea of tai chi.
Dancers, martial artists and performers copy the appearance of the art, and sometimes even claim to be teaching it.

Many classes focus on 'form', as though form were somehow the whole of tai chi rather than just a fraction of the training.
'Form collecting' occurs when an instructor fails to understand the purpose of form.

Other classes pitch the art at old age pensioners, and ignore the martial syllabus entirely...

A simplistic perception of tai chi leads people astray.

Pearls before swine

A master always has something to offer, while we go hungry because of our lack of appreciation.

(Kakuzo Okakura)

Sun Tzu


Tai chi ninjas?

Ninjutsu, a secret Japanese art until recently, either was strongly influenced by or originated from taijiquan. Many of the concepts, terms and movements are more than coincidentally similar to those of taijiquan.

(Robert Chuckrow)

Realistic self defence

If you have good timing, if you have a strong enough punch, you don't have to do fifty movements - you condense all the possibilities into one action. Make one cut, hurt him, Boom... it's over, down he goes. Enough already with all the screaming and excessive movements. Just do the job, get it over with, and go on to the next thing.

(Bruce Frantzis)


New starters do not want to stand-out and be the centre of attention.
They want to blend-in and find their feet.

We recognise this, and will ensure that you work with a group from the onset.