Yield and Overcome;
Bend and be straight...
He who stands of tiptoe is not steady.
He who strides cannot maintain the pace.

T'ai Chi and Yoga

I have been studying Yang style T'ai Chi for years. T'ai Chi is known as an "internal" martial art. It is called this because although it can be used for self defence the focus is on cultivating internal energy and stilling the mind. The origins of T'ai Chi are very old, at least 2000 years and are founded on Chinese principals of Taoism.

T'ai Chi is based around "forms". A form is a sequence of movements. In my class, we do the "simplified form", which consists of 24 movements and the "traditional form", which contains about 108 movements. The T'ai Chi forms have been described as meditation in movement. That's an accurate description I think. The movements are slow and deliberate. While practicing the form people experiance many benifits, including better health, flexability, enhanced mood and higher levels of awareness. People also report increased perception and intuition. Some people report psychic powers.

I also to do Yoga and after a session, I feel very relaxed and in a great mood. The feeling after a T'ai Chi session is similar, but I also feel stronger, calmer and with an enhanced sence of awareness. Part of T'ai Chi practice involves bringing your awareness into your body and at the same time projecting your awareness outwards. This is possible because the T'ai Chi movements are derived from combat movements, so you can imagine as you do the form, that you are working with an opponent. It's hard to describe!

I find T'ai Chi very worthwhile. So many people are floating through life, never really experiancing anything. They go to work, get married, have kids and die. All the time people are filling their lives with distractions. It's like the characters in "Waiting for Godot", allways looking for ways to pass the time and making up meaningless goals for themselves. I am not saying that T'ai Chi will get you out of a trap like that, but it certainly helps you to pause and have an awareness of whats really going on around you. To seperate the important things from the distractions.

I don't have many T'ai Chi links as I find most of the T'ai Chi web sites out there are pushing some particular teacher or technique, but here are a few that I found:

An interesting translation of the Tao Te Ching - Though not the best. The most readable translation I have is by a guy called Richard "Shining Thunder" Francis. It is both compassionate and profound. He is a great guy also. He teaches Chen style T'ai Chi, has published several books and lectures regularly. He is also completely blind.

Yang Style Tai Chi - A nice site which has some good articles about the history and practice of T'ai Chi.

Last Updated: 17 March 2008
Contact me at: skooter500@gmail.com