It's important for me that I build in recovery time when training because, of the amount of time I practice my Tai Chi throughout a day. Otherwise I tend to feel mentally and physically tired, which defeats the purpose of training - to feel calm and energised.

I train six days a week and have a day off on Sunday. I also spread my training over the whole day, which allows time to recover before each set of skills. This is necessary because some of the skills are very demanding, such as high, medium and low stances.

If one does not leave time for recovery from physical, psychological or emotional effort, then stress and burn out is more than likely.

Image courtesy of Martin Sanchez via Unsplash

The phrase 'let go but maintain your structure' is one I often repeat when teaching Tai Chi.

I do this because it helps to prevent students from relaxing so much that they lose the correct structure required.

Incorrect structure leads to poor performance, lack of chi flow and possible injury.