The other day someone asked me ‘how long have you been involved in Tai Chi for?’ I said, ‘just over 23 years’.

It made me think afterwards that words such as ‘involved’ or ‘doing’ don’t really reflect an accurate account of my experience in Tai Chi.

What does 23 years of involvement or doing Tai Chi really mean? Well, if I break it down into numbers it means about 9000 hours of training. And that doesn’t include the many hours of research I have done during that time.

That estimate comes from an average of 8 hours training per week – which includes club training and my personal training. And these days I’m no longer in a club environment due to work obligations and I train 9 hours per week on my own.

There are many who just go to a one hour Tai Chi class and do very little if any training. Their hours over a 23 year period would add up to approximately 1000 hours. And that’s okay as long as they don’t expect to improve their Tai Chi skill level.

What I have found with 9000 hours of training is that the work you do between classes will determine how much you will improve your Tai Chi. Now you don’t have to do what I do because we are different. My training schedule exists because I’m passionate about Tai Chi and as a teacher I have the motivation and the responsibilty to improve as much as I can.

The more hours you put in the more you improve. A very simple formula. Obvously your improvement will also be determined by the quality of teaching you receive and the effort you put into your training, besides the total hours of training.

My recomendation to students who asks me how much training should they do is at least 3 hours a week. That’s 30 minutes of training six days a week. Three hours training and a one hour class lesson per week over 23 years adds up to approximately 4600 hours of training!

So the next time someone asks you ‘how long have you been doing Tai Chi for?’ What will you say?

I know what I will say.

‘About 9000 hours!’