Why I still practice Tai Chi today. And about a promise I made 25 years ago.

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Tai Chi, Taiji, Taijiquan

Sometimes I ask myself about the reason to why I still practice T’ai Chi Ch’uan (Taijiquan). Or at least I ask myself why I still want to practice. The only quick answer I can give myself without thinking too much or reaching too deep is just: I forgot.

Yeah, I am not sure why I continue to practice Tai Chi anymore. I might have some kind of fuzzy idea about it: ”Because the art fascinates me” or ”because I love it”. Such an answer might be a reason enough to explain things, but it still doesn’t give me a good or satisfactory answer. It might have to do with the same reason a person plays chess or practice some sport. That person might not be able to come up with a good reason as well. Maybe they were taught in a very early age, maybe from their father or from some other person who was close to them. Maybe they were raised in a family who had that interest, so it’s just the most natural thing to do?

Who knows? But even if I forgot why I keep on struggling, I still know why I started practice Tai Chi. The very reason was just because martial arts fascinated me. It was not really a need to learn self-defence or fighting, but I already loved Asian culture and its mystique. Why I continued is another one. Sure, practicing the art has given me a lot, helped me through life. I was only eleven years old, so I guess you can say that in some respects, I was raised with Tai Chi. Even if it was about 25 years ago, I remember my first class as it was yesterday. My father took me there, to a private teacher he had found. This teacher didn’t have a class, which meant that I was his very first student. I also remember how excited I was on the bus back home, how I spoke with my dad about this very first meeting with the art.

I was blown away but my teacher’s skill and what he did. Of course, now when I’m looking through the rearview mirror, reaching back to the past, I realize that it might not have been very hard for my teacher to play around with me, or whooping any eleven year old kid’s but. But there was something about how subtle he did it, how precise his movements were, and how calm he was… He let me do anything I wanted, punch and kick at him. But I was left feeling completely out of control. In fact, I had never felt so helpless and so small in my whole life. And on top of that, when he deflected or directed my movements like a puppet on a string, he hardly even moved. It all blew me away.

But there is something else I remember. And I do remember this very clearly. I made myself a promise that day. Before leaving him for that first class, I knew I was coming back. In fact, I promised myself that I will never stop practicing Tai Chi until I can become as good as him. I was going to become good and better, even if it was going to take me 20 years.

And so it did. Almost at least. For more than 5 years ago, I visited my first teacher’s class for the last time. I had studied with some other teachers as well during the years, but I always returned to my first teacher. He never became anything like a father to me or a tutor. All those years, practicing with him was all about Tai Chi and nothing else. But still, he was the only one who could make me really relax and only in his class my mind was truly calm. I liked myself when I studied for him. And I have always liked the direction he took my Tai Chi. But then, after almost 20 years of practice this art, I understood that I wanted to take my Tai Chi further and in another direction. I had well surpassed my teacher as he was back then and I was not less skilled than he was now.

Until that moment I knew exactly why I had practiced Tai Chi all of these years. I still continue to practice the art with the same commitment, but I can’t really verbalize the reasons anymore. The art has just become a natural part of my life. Even in those periods when I am extremely busy and although sometimes I don’t get much time to practice, I still think about this art a lot, I read texts on Tai Chi and it’s sister Neijia arts, try to understand it better, contemplate on recent discoveries, write thoughts down and more. Sometimes I think about how deep this art is and how rewarding the practice has been. And still, there is so much left to discover.

The three first things you should learn about Tai Chi form practice

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Focus, Form, Relaxation, Tai Chi, Taiji

The very first lesson for about 25 years ago I learned three things about form practice. When you practice a Tai Chi form you should always:

• Relax
• Care for your balance,
• Have a calm, focused mind.

There are other, obvious things, like you practice it slow and at an even pace. But this is the three most basic points of Tai Chi Form practice.

Relax

Relax means that you always try to feel your body, feel where you get tensions and where you tense up. Relax does not being limp, but being able to control your tension as you move and not tense up.

Balance

Care for your balance means that you must always distinguish full from empty, carefully shift your wieght and be straight and aligned. You should feel your centerline and know how to be in balance all of the time.

Calmness

Being calm and focused means that you will occupy your mind with your tai chi practice and don’t think about other things. It means that you don’t let thoughts take in command of your mind, focus on the movements and your body. The mind as well as the heart should be empty (kong).

If you can keep these three principles at all time when you practice, your Tai Chi will get a good start. And yes, it actually is as simple as that.

Is Tai Chi (Taijiquan) a martial art?

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Martial arts, Tai Chi, Taiji

Is Tai Chi (Taijiquan) really a martial art? And does it have any real a martial value? Duh! Of course it is. And of course it has. Tai Chi is a very useful Chinese martial art. And as I explained in an earlier post, without the martial aspect, you can’t really called it Tai Chi. Or at least, without it, the art is not complete.

In this country where I live, Tai Chi was introduced as a gymnastic exercise for elderly people. Here, Tai chi was not known for the public until the very end of the 80s. But not even for many years after the was recognized people started to get a clue that it had something to do with martial arts. We did of course as I and others were fortunate to discover Tai Chi from the beginning as a traditional martial art. The first book written in my language showed the 24 movement form, but it didn’t even mention the word martial art. But duh! The name: T’ai Chi Ch’uan or Taijiquan means that it has to do with martial arts. In Chinese ch’uan or quan means boxing (It’s the character of a fist).

Later on some people got the idea that this old people’s exercise was developed from martial arts. But still, it took many years until even a small bunch of people who didn’t practice it to know that it could still be used and still practiced as a martial art.

So yes, Tai Chi can be a martial art and it can have martial value. But solo Tai Chi practice does not automatically has a martial value. I know teachers who say that you learn self-defence by practicing form. This is nothing but bullshit. But there are many Tai Chi bullshitters out there who claims all sort of stupid things.

Common Tai Chi practice is stuff like this:

• Form practice
• Solo drills and Qigong
• Push Hands (Tui Shou) drills
• Solo weapon forms

But for understanding and using Tai Chi as a martial art you also need to practice things like:

• Applications
• Free Tui Shou
• Tai Chi punching mechanics
• Sparring
• Attacking strategy
• Finishing strategy

You need to understand Tai Chi principles from a martial perspective, practice them for combat. You should also know that Tai Chi Ch’uan is a complete form of Ch’uan, or boxing. It’s a complete martial art. Yes, Tai Chi principles even things like yielding and relaxation has functional use. This means that you don’t need to add anything from another system for Tai Chi to be an effective martial art. Everything is allready here. But you need a good teacher who teach it all.

But still, you should know about other arts, maybe even learn some basics so you can understand how other martial arts do things. And preferably you should practice sparring against people from other styles. The more people you meet, practice with and fight friendly against, the better you will understand how Tai Chi works in combat situations. But then again, regardless what style of Tai Chi you practice, your Tai Chi should have everything you need for your art to make it a highly effective martial art.

Tai Chi vid: Wang Pei Sheng discusses Push Hands

This video starring Grand Master Wang Peisheng is one of my favourite Tai Chi vids you can find on the tubes. Luckily, you can watch it translated by a guy who spent many years in China studying martial arts, which of course means that it’s a pretty accurate translation. Even if it’s a staged demonstration, you can see that real skill shines through.

Wang Peisheng was well known for real fighting skills and he has proved himself to be a warrior as he survived many years in prison. Here you will have small hints on important points in Tai Chi like that Double weightedness and use of force prevents you from reading your opponent. In Tai Chi, softness and relaxation is not just something health oriented. It has a most practical use for real life combat situations.

On Natural Movements & Prenatal Qi

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Natural Movements, Prenatal principle, Prenetal Qi, Qi, Sun Lutang, Tai Chi, Taijiquan

As I wrote in my last post on form practicing speed, I promised to write more about “natural movements” and Prenatal Principle in Tai Chi (Taijiquan). To quote myself: you should “let your body do some of the work by itself, learn how your body wants to move without forcing it.” There are many good reasons to why you need to learn how to listen on your body, and slow form practice is an excellent tool for this purpose.

First, stop your intellectual process and just feel your movements

I found a great quote in this blog:

“When we learn to love our bodies for exactly as they are, we learn to cherish and adore them, listen to them, give them what they need and move them how they wish to be moved.”

It says a lot about what great Tai Chi practice is all about. And it says a lot about natural movements. Or at least it’s a key to access your natural movements and to start developing your Prenatal Qi.

If you read the books of Sun Lutang, he use the term “Prenatal Qi” a lot. He says that when you move, you should use prenatal qi and not postnatal qi. But what the heck does this mean? What does it mean in a most practical manner? And how do you actually do it?

First you should know that chinese thought can be expressed in a very abstract way and  it can be hard to understand if you don’t have a practical approach. But here Tai Chi is a wonderful art. It lets you study Chinese Philosophy practically without ever being theoretical or ever understand it intellectual. It’s all about the experience of the practice, feeling what the body doeas and let your body experience the changes that occur through the practice. So let’s get ride of theory and stop your intellectual process and let’s get started!

But then, how do you do it?

In a most practical way of explaining something which is mostly covered with symbolics and abstraction: When you practice Tai Chi, you should be calm, relaxed and if you have a comfortable and natural smile on your face, it’s even better. Just move, be balanced and move with alignment. You can start practicing “raise hands” a few times, playing freely with moves and circles, or you can work with your form.

Just feel your body. First examine your body as it moves, be sure that you are comfortable and move relaxed. Now amongst things, you should try to feel:

• what the transmission of balance and weight do to your arms.
• how the gravity affects your movements.
• how your breath affects your movements
• and how chest and spine movements affect the rest of the body.

You should try to have a rounded and quite strict alignment when practicing form and drills. Try to not move an arm by itself, but let the movements of weight transmission and open/close movements (=of the chest) control your arm movement.

After some time of practice, you will experience how small shifts of your stance, waist movement, movements using spine, scapula and elbows, will affect the arms to move more or less by themselves. Yes, sometimes, you will feel that sometimes your arm wants to move by itself. This feeling might be a slight feeling and the movements might be very small, so in the beginning, you need to move very careful and be sensative to what happens inside of your body. In Tai Chi this is what we call “Natural Movements” and this is also what is called “Prenatal” movements. The explanation on why the arms wants to move by themselves and what trigger your body’s movement is what Sun Lutang refers to “Prenatal Qi”. If we speak with terms from traditional Daoist medicine, this practice is from Nei Dan and is about restoring and develop the Original Qi that you were born with. This is about restoring the natural body movements you had when you were a child, but replaced with a taught way of using your body. One of my teachers was very sincere that if you practice Tai Chi this way, you will discover the key to why Tai Chi is considered a way to a healthy long life.

With some practice, your sensations of your natural, or “Prenatal” movements will become stronger. By just small adjustments of stance, waist, spine and kai/he (=chest expansion) movements when you practice your form, you will be able to control the movements of your limbs, letting your arms move more or less by themselves. You might feel a bit puzzled if you haven’t experienced it by yourself. But it’s really nothing strange or mystical. And you don’t need to worry, your body won’t move totally free from your will. You have just found a more natural way to move and you will understand how to utilize your body better.