The Five Levels of Development in Tai Chi

In a conversation with a friend who is a long time practitioner of Japanese martial arts I was envious at the structure that was imbued into the different levels of progress.  They have very defined levels which are defined by specific curriculum, vocabulary, knowledge, performance expectations, and even visible uniform upgrades.  What do the Chinese systems have? (crickets).  There are some schools that have tried to implement belt-systems or sashes or name walls but none of this has gotten any traction and often just looks gimmicky rather that standardizing development in tai chi. Instead:

Development in tai chi is based on progressing through five stages. A practitioner begins by memorizing the external moves, learning about and sensing internal development, connecting the external moves with the internal energy, building energy to the level of being able to issue force and express it externally, and increasing awareness so that correct movements, actions, and reactions are automatic.

Anyone who has made tangible progress in the martial arts has learned a set of movements and then made discoveries by working independently.

I am not advocating that the Chinese systems codify their progress here. The Chinese-stylist would defend their structure (or lack of) in the following way: By putting a structure in place or by identifying a single, all-talented teacher, you immediately put a ceiling on your progress. Anyone who has achieved a level of development in tai chi has learned a set of movements and then made discoveries by working independently. This is not an indictment on the Japanese or Korean systems. They have their own lineage of tinkering and making gains. When I cross-train with individuals I find that many have dabbled in multiple martial arts and have landed in their art of choice largely due to availability and personality.

So yes I feel that there are distinct advantages to progressing by being in a non-codified system. However, that doesn’t mean that a new or old person couldn’t benefit from seeing the long road so that they know which direction they are traveling.

In the Chinese systems, the path you are taking is largely due to what you or your teacher defines as important.

The beauty of Tai Chi is that it is 1) attractive to people with different interests such as health, martial arts, or history and 2) on the same token allows you to study the same thing for multiple decades as your interests change.

Here is an example: B.K. Frantzis writes prolifically on the use of tai chi in martial development and the stages of learning. Here is how he defines the stages of learning in an EnergyArts.com article.

Stage 1: Form Work (Long or Short Form)

Stage 2: Tai chi Pushing hands or Tui Shou

Stage 3: Transition Methods between Push Hands and Sparing

Stage 4: Sparring and Actual Sparring

It is decidedly slanted toward martial attainment. It is a very nice article if you are interested in a full explanation of each stage.

Five Levels of Development in Tai Chi

There is a tangible sequence to understand and truly follow to make progress in Tai Chi. Grand Master Chen Xiao Wang (CXW) lays out five levels of development that can be applied to any small goal such as refining a move or a large goal such as learning the form or what Frantzis did to explain martial development. Know that while we are discussing this at an intellectual level, all the real results and progress through the levels are born out of movement and action. Even two minutes a day of standing meditation or consistently working on learning the form brings profound results.

Learning taijiquan is in principle similar to educating oneself; progressing from primary to university level, where one gradually gathers more and more knowledge. Without the foundation from primary and secondary education, one will not be able to follow the courses at university level.  

Chen Xiao Wang

There is a tangible sequence to understand and truly follow to make progress in Tai Chi. Five levels have been laid out for us that can be applied to any finite or global pursuit.  This means that B.K. Frantzis’s explanation above incorporates these ideas and that we can take these ideas and apply them to our own interests. I will use an article translated for and boil the principles down.  Understand that micro-actions, even two minutes of practice or standing each day, bring profound understanding of progress. Just thinking about this intellectually can only get you so far.

The First Level: Requirements on the different parts of the body

The purpose: allows one’s energy to sink to the dantian

This level is super easy to understand and to execute. CXW estimates that these basics can be achieved in 6 months.  For the novice this is encouragement to work steadily and for the avid practitioner this is motivation to reinvest some time in some weak points and get on our way. Here is your job:

Level One Tips for Tai Chi Development

• keeping a straight body
• keeping the head and neck erect with mindfulness
• relaxing the shoulders and sinking the elbows
• relaxing the chest and waist letting them sink down
• relaxing the crotch and bending the knees
• breathe naturally

Here is a breath of fresh air: CXW says that a beginner at this level can be: “…not well coordinated and systematic…postures may not be correct…the force or jin produced may be stiff, broken, lax or on the other hand too strong.”  Sounds great! Let’s get the form down, let’s allow ourselves to stink at what we think is important because it is not yet important. This idea was also confirmed by surveying longtime practitioners during a recent workshop.

What Level 1 taught me:  Real life terms.

Once something is learned in tai chi it should have positive implications for our life outside of the training sessions. This includes growth and advancement that we experience. We should grow and expand in everything we do. At the time I heard CXW’s message I was extremely behind at work. I had seven products partially started and none were complete. Psychologically I was beating myself up for not being done and for the products being subpar in my opinion. Applying level one thinking, I brought them all through to completion in just-functional states. I was then able to pass them onto coworkers who had new motivation and fresh ideas. My manager was ecstatic with the progress and four months of cowering put to rest in 10 days!

Having built the outer structure and steadied the body, the next step is to turn inward. Once alignment and balance are in place, attention can shift to sensing and guiding the internal energy that flows through every movement.

The Second Level: Feel the movement of internal energy

The purpose: to ensure that the internal energy or qi will move systematically in the body in accordance with the requirements of each movement.

You may need to take a deep breath for this part because it starts to head in a direction that is outside of most people’s experience. A promise of tai chi is to build internal energy. Without getting too esoteric, this energy makes you feel awake, alive, happy, and enables healing. At a certain point, people are able to feel this energy inside of them and two things are needed to set this in motion, being aligned and attuned to it.

First, you need to have the body in good alignment. You just took care of the hard part of this in level one because you learned the choreography (order of movements) of the form. Now, you have earned the right of being able to concentrate on specific aspects of the move to improve your posture and alignment.

Second, you can now be listening to what the body is telling you while you move. At this level trust that things are flowing and that by making small improvements to the form you will increase the energy to the level that you can sense it.  Here is your job:

Level Two Tips for Tai Chi Development

• Union of movement: Closing and opening of hands with legs, elbows with knees, shoulders with hips. Basically, your upper and lower body don’t move independently of each other.
• Relaxing shoulders, elbows, chest, and waist as well as crotch and knees. Nothing is flexed. No joint is locked straight.
• Begin movements from the floor and the waist which acts as a pivot to move every part of the body.
• Breathe deeply and naturally.

What Level 2 taught me: Real life terms.

I had been studying guitar for a while and could “play” a couple songs.  It is merely for fun and am not about to quit my day job so I hadn’t thought about refining a song past just learning the notes.  Then my teacher asked if I wanted to play at a Student Showcase Performance.  I agreed, the fear kicked in, and holy cow was I focused on improving the song I already knew.  I had a blast bringing the song up to performance level, played in front of a completely sympathetic crowd, and for the first time had someone say “Oh you play the guitar?” And for the first time I answered “yes.”  When I was fear-stricken on stage my body was acting before my mind (which was frozen) could.  “Oh you study tai chi?”  Focus on improvements and answer them “yes.”

When you can feel energy moving through your form, refinement naturally follows. Level 3 invites you to strengthen that internal current, synchronizing breath, movement, and awareness until they act as one.

The Third Level: Mastering the internal and external requirements

The purpose: To improve the strength of internal qi and begin the coordination between muscle movements and the functioning of the internal organs.

Level 3 is so much fun. It is a time when you are continually surprised by experienced that you never knew people experienced. And, you clearly see how doing tai chi is so different than other physical, mental, and therapeutic activities.

At this point, you know a form or multiple forms. You learn more forms such as weapons, qi gong or push hands drills and each experience serves to take you outside of the regular experience and show you how to improve things.

Level Three Tips for Tai Chi Development

Here is your job:

• Synchronize movements with breathing precisely. Rising movements, expansions, and chambering to strike are inhales. Falling movements, shrinking movements, and striking are exhales.
• Remain at ease relying more on your posture and structure to move than your muscles.
• Undertake push-hands and weapons as an out-of-the-box experiment to practice your balance, posture, and force
• Check on the quality and quantity of the internal force. Is there blood flow to your hands, visible by speckled skin? Can you break into a sweat from standing meditation? Can you feel heat in your palms? If not, seek specific corrections on standing and qi gong.

What Level 3 taught me:  Real life terms.

Much of the focus of the third level has to do with dissolving conflict. I have benefitted from my tai chi development by doing less because it has taught me to simply learn how not to respond. So many times at work or with the kids, someone is in a bad mood or is acting clearly out of their own motivations. I always contemplated my response as being for or against them or a choice between appeasing them or aggravating them further. But what about doing nothing? I began putting some time between me and responding to workers who “needed to talk” or a child that “needed” something. By the time I approached them on the subject they were often confused because they had forgotten all about it, had moved on, or were embarrassed. This all comes down to adaptation in sometimes stressful circumstances and tai chi can give you that.

With inner and outer harmony established, it’s time to explore how intention transforms into force. Level 4 turns awareness into expression, revealing how to project energy with clarity and precision.

The Fourth Level: Expressing force

The purpose: To exert the right force, adjusting internally, predicting the opponent’s intention, subduing one’s own actions, and expressing precise force and hitting the target accurately.

Level 4 is where skill transforms into artistry. You’ve built internal stability and harmony; now you learn to release it with intention. This is the level where internal power (jin) expresses itself effortlessly meaning that it is never forced or wasted. Every movement has purpose and direction, and even without an opponent, you feel the feedback of power cycling through your structure.

In Chen Xiaowang’s terms, this stage is about listening to yourself, to the opponent, and to the environment. The mind becomes quiet, and sensitivity sharpens. You predict and adapt before conflict arises, whether in push-hands, conversation, or daily life. Power becomes precision, and action emerges from stillness.

Level Four Tips for Tai Chi Development

Here is your job:

• Practice each movement as though you were confronting an opponent.
• Each part of the body must move in a linked and continuous manner so that the whole body moves in unison.
• Movements of the upper and lower body are related.
• There should be a continuous flow between movements.

Applying Level 4 to Real Life

Force does not come from the buildup of strength or clout. Each year my profession attends a conference and has a booth with varying degrees of success. This last year was the most successful. It was not because of the products we were selling or because of who was attending. We worked hard to strip away everything that was non-essential and therefore had extremely positive engaging employees attend who focused on three applicable products. It was a success because we aligned our force to have the greatest impact and left the conference feeling elated rather than exhausted.

As control gives way to naturalness, power softens into presence. Level 5 is where practice and life merge. It’s the moment when tai chi ceases to be something you perform and becomes the way you move through the world.

The Fifth Level: Coordination and special relationships

The purpose: To work hard day by day until the body is very flexible and adaptable to multi-faceted changes.

Level 5 is not an end point but an ongoing return. The practitioner has embodied softness and strength so fully that situations are seen for their mental, physical or emotional distinctions The mind and body act in unity, naturally expressing the principles of tai chi without conscious thought.

At this level, distinctions such as practice and daily life, stillness and motion, strength and softness all fade. You can adapt instantly to change because you have the power to become change, constantly responding, yielding, and returning to center. This is mastery not in the sense of dominance, but of integration.

Level Five Tips for Tai Chi Development

Here is your job:

• The tai chi form should be relaxed, dynamic, springy and lively.
• Every move and every motionless instant is in accordance with taiji principle
• Every part of the body should be very sensitive and quick to react
• There should also be constant interchange between expressing and conserving of force
• The stance should be firm as though supported from all sides

Applying Level 5 to Real Life

At Level 5, tai chi becomes a way of being rather than something you “do.” Flexibility, awareness, and timing show up in subtle ways: responding to life’s surprises with composure, shifting plans gracefully when things change, and maintaining balance amid uncertainty.

For instance, when my company faced a sudden restructuring, I initially felt the urge to resist and to argue, to defend my team’s place. But remembering the principles of adaptability and centeredness, I paused. Instead of reacting, I observed how events were unfolding and found new opportunities within the changes. My team was reassigned to a project that better matched our skills, and we thrived.

Level 5 teaches that mastery isn’t about control but instead responsiveness. Whether in martial application or professional life, true strength lies in knowing how to yield, flow, and return to balance.

Summary:

As you can see, development in tai chi is a natural progress from external to internal or from hard to soft. That being said, we need to know that we cannot beat ourselves up along the way for being too external or hard.  That is the point. Being too external or forceful and not considering the other point of view might have led us to study tai chi. Don’t worry! You are not alone. We did a survey to find out why people study tai chi and everyone is seeking to make one improvement or another.