What is Tai Chi?
This question is a staple of any introductory text on Tai Chi or any school’s website. Perhaps we have been slightly remiss in not explicitly addressing it in our FAQs or elsewhere.
We’ll start off with some stock answers, move through some more personal opinions derived from long and sometimes painful experience, often being on the verge of giving up, and finish with distilling Tai Chi in to a single sentence that will give you a running thunder punch right in the feels.
The standard answers normally go along the lines of a system of exercise, a martial art and a spiritual pursuit with varying emphasis amongst schools and lineages. We can collectively count on one hand the number of people in the Tai Chi world who embody all three of these in a particularly remarkable way. There are not a huge number of practitioners who do any one of them in a way that we don’t take issue with. As we have repeated ad nauseam, if you want to do damage to your joints, especially if you are coming in to it with an existing injury, the traditional styles of Tai Chi are an excellent choice. Apologies if this post feels a little contrary but some things just have to be said.
It is frustrating that Tai Chi gets such a bad name with regards to actual fighting ability. Whilst it definitely lacks fighting representatives, and any that there are have often retrofitted Tai Chi on to other skillsets, there is some gold to be mined out of the classical syllabus of form, push hands, application, chi kung and weapons. Well constructed forms are an excellent combination of relaxation and body mechanics which is exactly what you need if you intend to throw bones either in a boxing ring or elsewhere. Sumo is a great sport to graduate on to from the more intense end of the push hands spectrum. Note that if you have any doubts about the quality of a form particularly if you are an autodidact, then don’t feel queasy about making changes to make it safer particularly on the knees. Or just go down the Yiquan route of shili evolving in to jian wu, the experimental nature of this inherently creates better outcomes. The sensitivity you gain from push hands will make you a wizard in clinch. There you will be able to show the fabled Tai Chi abilities of using minimal force in the face of aggression with your opponent collapsing in to a void and left staring at the ceiling wondering quite what happened. The simple missing component is; if you want to use Tai Chi in a combat environment you have to get in that ring or on that mat the same amount as any combat sports athlete. If Tai Chi is your secret ingredient you are adding in addition to the sparring and pad/bag work then you’re going to possess a little bit of magic that might just elevate you above your peers.
We like to think of Tai Chi as a workbench to achieve your personal goals and experiences. This idea is more readily applied through our system because we have just about completely abandoned forms. Movement is freestyle based around guiding principles with the exception of some short sequences that consist of just a handful of moves such as our take on grasp sparrow’s tail. With this foundation you can use Tai Chi as gentle or vigorous exercise, physical therapy, energy cultivation, interaction with your environment (think footwork on stepping stones across a stream kind of idea - you can take that a step further and work with the esoteric energy of that place), developing body mechanics with or without martial intent, handling weights and weapons including juggling skills, a physical art form for expression and/or performance, cosplay, magick, the list goes on. What this approach gives you is freedom and allows you to change the background music of your practice both literally and figuratively which will colour the whole experience. More on this and why traditional classes may be a spent force in future posts.
What is Tai Chi?…….Tai Chi is a call to adventure.