Can Tai Chi Chuan make you smarter? Of course it can. I will discuss how and why in this article. There are probably more aspects than I bring up here, but there are at least three different aspects that are well worth discussing.

But first, let’s make a detour for no apparent reason, probably just to keep you on hold, or to make the article seem longer and more packed without adding any real value to the topic. So how about briefly mentioning someone who was kind of smart?

Let’s see… Who is smart? Well, Einstein seems to have been pretty intelligent, but he was also smart in a creative way that challenged most other people’s intelligence. Apparently, Einstein said something like this:

If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. 
If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.

I wholeheartedly agree. You need to encourage children’s fantasy and challenge their thinking. Reading fairy tales and fantastic stories for them is one of the best and most efficient ways. The problem with many people is that they get damaged some way on the road, as they grow up. From being that child that was open to the world and excited to explore everything around them, many people’s thinking becomes stiff and non-flexible.

Sitting bored and frustrated in a school class, repeating facts you have zero interest in, does not really encourage you to think at all. Many people’s thinking get sort of cemented, as you are taught how to think, what to believe, and how to just sit down and shut up. In that age, people are telling you so much about ethics, rule and similar shit, so you might even endanger your own moral compass.

That would be a pity if you did, right? The good thing is that people can continue to grow and train their intelligence and thinking. How? Well, practicing T’ai Chi Ch’uan can help you along the road. In fact, I can’t really see how Tai Chi would not make someone smarter. Well yeah, those who quit of course, quitting is not smart at all.

Anyway, here are three great ways Tai Chi will make you smarter (as long as you don’t quit of course.):

  • Tai Chi teaches you to challenge yourself
  • Tai Chi philosophy teaches you to question reality
  • Tai Chi is the right way to train your brain and nervous system

– What? How could that make me smarter?
– Duh! You haven’t even let me explain yet. Don’t be so impatient. Being impatient is not smart. So let me dig into it:

1. Tai Chi teaches you to challenge yourself

Tai Chi will challenge you and continue to challenge you in many different ways. When you start practicing Tai Chi, the exercises might seem so simple. But you’ll find out how hard it is, and while trying to coordinate your body, you will realize how clumsy you are. (I will let you know a secret: Sometimes I have a very hard time holding myself from not bursting into a big laughter when I teach a Tai Chi form to a beginner.)

Yes, Tai Chi will challenge you and your own self-image in many different ways. And it will continue to do so as long as you continue to practice. You will always find more mistakes, more deep-rooted problems (like what you can read about in this article). But challenging yourself will also make you humble, less arrogant and more open for other people’s views and different ways of looking at the World.

This means that you will become more open to other people’s views, and probably also more interested in what other people think. If you don’t understand that this is a kind of intelligence, I am sorry, but then I have not much hope for you. This is a kind of intelligence, an emotional type of intelligence you will gain, an intelligence and the ability to more clearly reflect yourself in others, and to better understand others by reflecting them through yourself.

Oh, and by the way, one of my teachers, a doctor in psychology said that he believed that if you understand Tai Chi you cannot be arrogant. If a “Tai Chi Master” is arrogant, he does not understand Tai Chi. Well, I agree. So you should run away from any Tai Chi teacher you find arrogant. You will thank me later if you follow my advice.

2. Tai Chi philosophy teaches you to question reality

Tai Chi philosophy teaches you a traditional Chinese way of thinking. In fact, Tai Chi is an expression of Chinese philosophical thought, and has, at least partially, developed from and through old Chinese thought. So in a sense, every time you practice Tai Chi, you are studying Chinese philosophy. Wow, that was deep, wasn’t it? (I should probably insert a surprised emoji here, don’t you think?)

But the thing is, that Tai Chi has many features and characteristics in common with Chinese philosophy, especially with Daoism and Chan (Zen). Yeah, that kind of “crazy” schools of Chinese philosophical thought. In fact, my teacher, the late Mr Hu, said that if you are going to really understand Tai Chi, you need to be a little crazy (and by the way, he is probably the most intelligent and most intellectual person I’ve ever met).

How so? Well, in Tai Chi you need to be soft to become strong, relax if you want to achieve strength, you need to abolish aggression if want to learn how to fight, and just about everything is upside down. You move down to reach up, you move back to go forwards – you are taught to do everything “the opposite way” compared to what “common” people do in their everyday life.

This way of thinking, and doing, is much in tune with a lot of Chinese philosophy as Laozi, Zhuangzi and the Chan (Zen) masters. If you read and study those texts, and other types of Chinese thought (The I Ching and the 7 Military Classics are also highly recommended.), you will learn to challenge your way of thinking and the reality you live in.

You will also learn how to challenge facts, statements and the mainstream media narratives, because you will always try to look at things differently, from different angles, and you will never take something for granted.

Some people believe that Tai Chi is for the old. But in this regard, isn’t Tai Chi a great gift for a young person growing up, while shaping his or her personality in order to cope with the world?

2. Tai Chi is the right way to train your brain and nervous system

How come science has learned how to cram so much information into such little space, but robotics still find it so hard to make a robot move smooth and “natural” as a human being? Some scientists have come to the conclusion that the size of the human brain has very little to do with storing a lot information, memories and intellectual capacity. And instead, the complex structure of the brain, which also demands size, is essential for fine tuned coordination and for us to coordinate different things at the same time.

You can also see in the animal kingdom that animals performing more fine-tuned acts of coordination are in fact more intelligent and also have a better memory. Elephants, dolphins and octopuses belong to this category. Octopuses? Really? Yes, they can even learn how to lay puzzle pieces together, to complete simple puzzles.

So my point is that it’s not the ability to store information or learn things that is the core of human intelligence, but the coordination of fine-tuned body movements. So when we practice Tai Chi, we do in fact practice and develop what is the the core of our own intelligence.

Studies have shown that children who study instruments, as the piano and the violin, do better in school and get better grades than children who are doing different sports but don’t play instruments. However, we also know for a fact that the ability to focus is essential for doing good on IQ-tests. So the meditative aspects and the amount of concentration needed for Tai Chi practice develops our ability to think clearer and focus better.

Yes, people who practice Tai Chi will do better in IQ-tests than before they started to practice. So there’s the proof that Tai Chi can indeed develop your intelligence. Being able to focus and keep focus is an excellent skill. But personally speaking, I believe that the kind of emotional intelligence and self-reflection I spoke about, as well as developing a readiness to always challenge facts and narratives, are more rewarding than getting a good score on an IQ test.

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Disclaimer: This article was 100% written by a human, no AI writer was involved. Any language mistake or grammatical error are due to the fact that the author’s mother tongue is not English.