From 7.30's archives: Li Cunxin dances The Nutcracker at age 56 | ABC News 

His autobiography is fascinating. I'm re-reading it at moment.

His autobiography is fabulous, I don't remember tai chi being mentioned.

It was because of the intensive training he received from ages 11-18 years at the Beijing Dance Academy. The training was strict and grueling. He never mentioned tai chi in his autobiography.

There's no reference to Tai Chi in his autobiography, just to extremely rigorous and intensive ballet training at Beijing Dance Academy which he supplemented with adding weights privately. At the Dance Academy they began at half past five in the morning with running around open fields then breakfast followed by classes in ballet, Beijing Opera Movement, Acrobatics and Chinese folk dance with normal school subjects between 2pm-5:30pm followed by 2 more hours of ballet or politics. The training was particularly rigorous with most students having injuries including torn hamstrings and being in extreme pain while not being allowed to cry or stop. At one point in time they were trained in certain Kung Fu techniques by a champion from the Beijing Martial Arts School yet that's the closest to Tai Chi that Li Cunxin ever references studying.