At Hand of the Wind we practice the Lee Family style internal arts of Tai Chi Ch'uan and Qigong. These arts were brought to the UK in the first half of the Twentieth Century by Professor Chan Kam Lee and then popularized throughout the second half of the Twentieth Century by Professor Chee Soo.
Hand of the Wind classes are taught by myself, Conrad Robinson, and I have been teaching these arts for over 25years.
The Lee Family Style is a very complete style covering health and relaxation aspects of the arts alongside the martial arts applications as well. The videos presented on this site are aimed at students who wish to study the health and relaxation aspects primarily, although I will sometimes refer to martial applications within the teaching where it helps to clarify a movement.
I have spent many years practicing these arts and have gained great benefits from them - I hope that you will discover at least some of the same benefits in your practice too. I also hope that you will enjoy practicing these arts as much as I have over the years.
One question that often comes up about Lee Family Style Tai Chi (usually from people who have studied other styles) is about the use of so-called 'Double Weighted' stances. Most popular styles of Tai Chi derive from Chen style, however the Lee Family Style does not and the use of stances where the weight is equally balanced has always been part of the system.
Within other styles the use of equally weighted (or 'double weighted') stances is discouraged and this can be traced back to Master Yang who developed the Yang Style of Tai Chi from Chen style in the 19th Century. An interesting point to consider is why Master Yang felt it necessary to write that double weighted stances shouldn't be part of Tai Chi, if they were not part of the Chen style that he originally practiced. The reason that Master Yang gave for not using double weighted stances was that a martial artist could become too grounded and unable to move freely. The counter argument is that double weighted stances are used in almost all other martial arts without this being an issue. In my personal experience teaching these arts for over a quarter of a century, I have come across one student who did indeed become stuck in Riding Horse stance during combat. The vast majority of students do not seem to have this difficulty, but this does raise the question of whether this was a problem for Master Yang himself!
Even within the styles of Tai Chi which discourage the use of double weighted stances you will see Qigong exercises performed in double weighted stances as it is only a potential issue within a martial arts context.
As a final point to consider - it is physically impossible to shift the weight from one leg to another without being 'double weighted' at some point so the only question should really be about how long that transitional position lasts!