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Dr. Bob Bacher
When people watch a high-level Chen style practitioner issue fajin, the explosive release of power that is one of the defining characteristics of the art, the reaction is almost always the same. It looks superhuman. The body moves with a whipping speed that seems to defy what is possible from something that looks so relaxed …Continue Reading
Dr. Bob Bacher
There is a principle in Chen style Tai Chi that, once understood, makes every posture in the entire practice suddenly make sense. Not as a collection of separate movements to be memorized but as a single formula applied repeatedly in different configurations. Most practitioners practice for years without being told this principle explicitly. They develop …Continue Reading
Dr. Bob Bacher
I get some version of this question constantly. Someone has watched videos for months, maybe tried a local class or two, and they want to know how to find a real teacher, someone who can take them further than they can take themselves. It is one of the most important questions a serious student can …Continue Reading
Dr. Bob Bacher
This is one of the questions I get asked most often, and I understand why. Yang style is the most visible form of Tai Chi in the world, the slow, even, gentle movement most people picture when they hear the word Tai Chi at all. Chen style is older, less widely known outside of dedicated …Continue Reading
Dr. Bob Bacher
In 57 years of practicing Tai Chi, and several decades of teaching it, I have watched thousands of beginners walk through the same handful of doors that lead nowhere. Not because they lack discipline. Not because they lack ability. Almost always because nobody told them what the actual mistakes look like from the inside. Most …Continue Reading
Dr. Bob Bacher
The gap between someone who knows Tai Chi and someone who practices Tai Chi is not a gap in knowledge or skill. It is a gap in habit. I have met many people over the years who studied Tai Chi seriously for a period, learned the form, understood the principles, and then gradually stopped practicing …Continue Reading
Dr. Bob Bacher
The question of how to practice Tai Chi at home comes up constantly, and it deserves a direct, practical answer rather than a vague encouragement to simply practice more. In 57 years of daily Tai Chi practice, I have practiced in studios, in parks, on beaches, in living rooms, in hotel rooms, and in spaces …Continue Reading
Dr. Bob Bacher
I am asked this question regularly, by patients, by students, by people who are researching what practice to begin. Tai Chi or yoga? Which is better? What is the difference? If I already do yoga, do I need Tai Chi? I have practiced Tai Chi for 57 years. I have enormous respect for yoga as …Continue Reading
Dr. Bob Bacher
In 35 years of chiropractic practice, joint health was central to almost everything I treated. Backs, knees, hips, shoulders, necks, the joints of the spine and extremities were where my patients’ pain lived and where my clinical attention was focused daily. I learned a great deal about joints through that work, about how they fail, …Continue Reading
Dr. Bob Bacher
Most people who come to Chen style Tai Chi for the first time encounter silk reeling before they know what it is. They watch an experienced practitioner move through a basic exercise, the arms spiraling, the waist turning, the weight shifting from foot to foot in a continuous flowing cycle, and they think it looks …Continue Reading
Dr. Bob Bacher
Stress management is one of the most crowded categories in wellness. There are apps, breathing techniques, supplements, therapy modalities, exercise protocols, and an endless supply of advice about what to do when anxiety rises or stress accumulates. Most of it has some value. Most of it also misses the central problem. The central problem is …Continue Reading
Dr. Bob Bacher
Chronic pain is one of the most difficult conditions I encountered in clinical practice, not because it is the most severe, but because it is the most persistent. Acute pain has a cause, a timeline, and usually a resolution. Chronic pain has often outlasted its original cause entirely. The tissue has healed. The injury is …Continue Reading