Zhan Zhuang – Cultivate Boundless Energy & Internal Strength With Standing Qigong: Standing Qigong for the Tai Chi Practitioner Who Already Moves
by Aaron Ellis Format: Kindle Edition, 2026
This is the all-new second edition: substantially rewritten, expanded, restructured, and illustrated from cover to cover. If you have read the first edition, this is a different book — deeper, clearer, and built around the practice rather than the history. What’s new in this edition:
- Illustrated throughout — clear posture plates and teaching diagrams for every key posture and principle.
- Greatly expanded — nearly twice the length, with the padding cut and the practice deepened.
- Fully restructured — five clear parts taking you from first principles to a complete daily practice.
- A 12-week training programme — a step-by-step path from your first minute of standing to a settled daily habit.
Stand still. Build real power. Zhan Zhuang — “standing like a tree” — is the oldest and quietest training method in the internal arts. You adopt a posture, you hold it, and you do not move. To the outside eye it looks like nothing at all. Inside that stillness is the most demanding and rewarding work in the internal arts: the building of root, structure, and relaxed, connected power. This book is written for the practitioner who already moves. If your Tai Chi form feels hollow, if you have been told to “sink,” to “root,” to “use intention rather than force” and quietly wondered what any of it means in your own body — this is the missing engine, explained plainly. Drawing on more than thirty years in the martial arts, combat sports, strength and conditioning, and clinical hypnotherapy, Aaron Ellis cuts through the mysticism and explains why standing works — what is happening in the body, how to build it, and how to carry it into your art. Inside you will learn:
- The four principles beneath every posture — song, root, central equilibrium, and intention.
- How to build correct structure from the ground up — feet, knees, kua, spine, and crown — without strain or injury.
- The core standing postures, each with clear entry, alignment, intent, and common faults.
- The inner work — breath, the lower dantian, intention, and reading the body’s signals.
- A complete twelve-week programme to build a lasting daily practice.
Stillness on the outside. Ceaseless movement within. Begin where the tree begins — at the root.
About the author:
Aaron Ellis is an Australian author, martial artist, and lifelong student of human movement and change. A #1 Amazon Bestseller in Martial Arts (Kindle, July 2026), his work draws on more than three decades in the places where real change happens — the training mat, the strength and conditioning floor, the therapy room, and the stage. He has spent seven years in clinical hypnotherapy, thirty-four years coaching strength and conditioning, and twenty-three years teaching martial arts, holding Queensland and two Australian titles in combat sports, and has practised Systema since 2005. He writes on the internal arts, personal power, resilience, and change, cutting through the mysticism to explain why these practices actually work — in the body and in the mind. “His books include Do Less, Zhan Zhuang, and the Magnetic series. He believes the most profound training is often the quietest. Find more of his work at his website.
