A Few More Words … Sixth Month

When I first began studying with Stuart in the early 1990s, I wanted to learn everything he knew. I wanted to learn the Taijiquan form, sword, saber, staff, the two-person sets, Taiji Ruler, Qigong, meditation, and Neidan (Internal Alchemy). If Stuart taught it, I wanted to learn it.

Like many students, I was fascinated by how much there was to learn. There was always another form, another exercise, another book, another method waiting around the corner.

But there was one practice that never seemed to go away: Tracing the Wall.

In fact, the very first private lesson Stuart ever gave me, way back in 1994, was on Tracing the Wall. Even as a rank beginner to Qigong and Taijiquan, I could experience a quality of relaxation and lightness in Tracing the Wall that I couldn’t yet find in the Taijiquan solo form.

It would take many years of working with Taijiquan before I could bring that same quality into the solo form—something that Tracing the Wall allowed me to experience from the very beginning.

Still, I was eager to move on to what I thought were the more important things.

I wanted the forms. I wanted applications. I wanted the “deeper” teachings.

So, like many students, I gradually began treating Tracing the Wall as something you did before the real practice started.

But over the years, I noticed something.

Whenever I felt stuck in my Taijiquan practice, I came back to Tracing the Wall.

Whenever I wanted to better understand relaxation, I came back to Tracing the Wall.

Whenever I was trying to understand rooting, body mechanics, or the movement of Qi, I came back to Tracing the Wall.

It seemed that many of the answers I was looking for were already there.

After all these years, it’s still one of the practices I spend the most time with.

One of Stuart’s favorite stories was about an elderly teacher named Mr. Gao.

During one of his trips to Taiwan, while staying with Master T.T. Liang, Stuart was asked to deliver gifts to several old friends and fellow practitioners. Before he left, Master Liang handed him a small scroll to give to Mr. Gao.

When Mr. Gao opened it, he laughed, turned it around, and showed Stuart what it said:

“Would you please teach this idiot something?”

Stuart loved telling that story.

He said that Mr. Gao wasn’t the sort of person most people would picture when they think of a martial arts master. Yet Stuart couldn’t move him. He couldn’t uproot him. He couldn’t budge him. His rooting, balance, vitality, and internal strength were remarkable.

When Stuart asked him about it, Mr. Gao attributed much of it to a single practice: Tracing the Wall.

Forty-five minutes every morning. Forty-five minutes every evening. Year after year.

As students, it’s easy to think our practice develops by adding more. Another exercise. Another breathing method. Another standing posture. Another form. Another class.

But Mr. Gao’s example pointed in a different direction. He wasn’t collecting practices. He was deepening one.

The older I get, the more I appreciate why Stuart greatly valued Tracing the Wall throughout his life.

He never treated it as merely an exercise, although he taught it in a simple way.

The longer I’ve worked with it myself, the more I’ve come to realize how much is contained within it.

In our free Tracing the Wall seminar, Stuart said, “I cannot express how much this exercise has meant to me over the years.”

I understand that statement much better today than I did when I first started.

Over the past several years, I’ve found myself returning to Tracing the Wall again and again. Each time I do, I see more of the same principles that appear throughout Taijiquan, Taiji Ruler, standing meditation, breathing methods, and Internal Alchemy.

They’re not really separate practices. They’re different expressions of the same principles.

The more I explored it, the more I realized Tracing the Wall deserved to be taught as more than a Qigong exercise or warm-up. It can be understood as a complete approach to internal cultivation.

That’s what inspired my new workshop.

For the first time, I’ll be teaching Tracing the Wall from that perspective.

We’ll explore twelve foundational stances and thirty-six variations drawn from Taijiquan, Taiji Ruler, post-stance training, and the Cai Dui Pulling Leg exercises. Although these methods are often taught separately, they all deepen the same practice and reveal different aspects of the same underlying principles.

The longer I’ve worked with Tracing the Wall, the more I’ve come to appreciate why Stuart never stopped teaching it.

Every time I return to it, I find something I hadn’t seen before.

That’s what inspired me to put this workshop together. Not because I’ve exhausted what Tracing the Wall has to offer, but because I’m still discovering what’s there.

If that sounds like something you’d like to explore, I’d love to have you join us.

Tracing the Wall: The Complete Internal Cultivation Method will be held live on Saturday, August 22, via Zoom. As always, everyone who registers will receive lifetime access to the recordings.

I hope to see you there.

—Patrick