Tai Chi, or, in modern Chinese, “Tai ji”, is a movement art comprising linked sequences of postures that originated as a martial art in the nineteenth century in a small village in Henan province in north-central China. Introduced to Peking (modern Beijing) it became well-known due to the reputation of the founder of the eponymous Yang style, Yang Lu Chan. As time passed, tai chi became famous and popular. In order to teach the public, difficult moves were removed and the entire set, or Form, was simplified. This simplified form, when it transferred west, into the fertile ground of the 60s counter-culture, was even more diluted, and uprooted from its martial base, such that many practitioners refuse to acknowledge that it was even a martial art at all. Thus, tai chi has come to be seen as gentle movement routine suitable only for those who have lost dynamic whole body power; in other words, the very elderly. In 150 years, from Yang the Invincible to Tai Chi in a chair, it is a tale found in all arts, from dynamic, energetic origins to effete, enervated exhaustion. As in empires, so in the arts.

I learned via the martial tradition, and to make comprehension easier, I often show students the meaning behind the moves in an application, normally for fun. What is more important than training people for combat, is demonstrating the power behind the moves, to show that the old boys in China really did have a powerful martial art, but that to train for combat you need a decade of daily practice, for hours. This is not my focus. Testing the postures though, is invaluable. But first we have to get students into a good posture.

So what can tai chi do for you?

Modern westerners are anatomically suffering from the mismatch between what evolution designed us for, and our environment. We were not designed to sit all day, then sit all evening on a sofa, eating snacks, watching a box. We were designed for constant motion, for walking, for running, hunting, foraging, and resting in a squat position. Except for recreational joggers, few of us do these things. So the first thing I try to do is reset the body as best as I can, to a neutral posture, where the shoulder blades are down, the head is back, the pelvis is not tilted, and the legs are not locked. This is not easy, as it requires the body’s fascia to adapt to the new position.

What is fascia?

According to the Cleveland clinic, “ Fascia is a thin, fibrous, and highly sensitive connective tissue that forms a 3D, continuous web surrounding every muscle, bone, nerve, blood vessel and organ in the body. Composed mainly of collagen and elastin, it provides structural support, allows tissues to glide, and maintains structural integrity. Healthy fascia is flexible, but it can tighten and form adhesions, restricting movement”

That last point is important. What defines your posture is often the fascia cramping and crimping the optimal muscular expression around a joint, contributing to shortened muscular areas. This causes things like elevated shoulders, a forward head, collapsed chest, pelvis tilting, and locked knees. This can come about through extended periods of immobility, such as sitting in a chair all day, staring at a screen. So, by allowing the fascia to unglue itself, you introduce more movement into the joint. You do this by holding isometric postures like standing, which slowly melt the fascia via gravity and the heat of mechanical movement. Then, the fascia “sets” into the new posture and the range of motion should be improved. Deformation leads to Reformation.

Ok, what then?

Well, that’s already a big deal. Most people who walk into my classes have very poor posture, so any improvement is already a win. The head going back can open the chest, they feel and look more confident. The pain in the back lessens, the diaphragm is now able to move. Most westerners do not breathe with their diaphragm. Only singers. We de-learned it. Babies, dogs and cows can breathe with their diaphragm but we lost it for various cultural reasons.

From this basis, this "Neutral Position” ( bear in mind that not all skeletons are alike, and progress will be different according to the effort put it, but even an approximation to “Neutral” will have immediate benefit) I start to introduce the basics of tai chi movement. These involve, to put it simply, 3 position for your elbows, and about 3 for your legs. With those 6 positions, you can learn most tai chi movements. Sounds easy, right?

Unfortunately, it’s not. While learning and utilising those 6 positions are not that difficult per se, what is hard is that the torso has to maintain the tightly-wrapped position such that the elbows are free to move and not hindered by the shoulder. This requires a lot of self-awareness, called interoception, along with proprioception.

What is interoception? Interoception is the capacity to sense, feel, and interpret internal bodily signals. So, in the case of tai chi, knowing when your shoulder has elevated when it shouldn’t, and then correcting. Proprioception is the ability to sense where you are in space. Both work synergistically to stabilise the routine. Therefore, you can’t be distracted doing tai chi. You need to be fully aware and engaged, unlike what you see in most gyms, where loud music and headphones distract people, so that they are not truly present to what is happening. This is why tai chi can be classified as a form of meditation and mindfulness practice. Otherwise, you are “just going through the motions”. Moving smoothly requires great neuromuscular control. The difficulty level can be adjusted. It’s a total body workout, from the hip extension as we step, to the constant micro and macro squatting, the joint compression and hydration, the maintenance of a powerful upper back with controlled shoulder blades, the engagement of the neck, the vascular pumping and so on.

How do we learn the movements and what is the ultimate point?

Learning tai chi movements takes patience, and in our hyper-caffeinated society, where a second delay at a traffic light is greeted with instant rage behind, where distraction is now big business by global tech behemoths, trying to slow down your body and mind by following me doing a strange, slow, choreographed ritualised sequence, certainly seems odd, weird and faintly embarrassing. But bear with it. Going slow has multiple benefits. Perfectionists, go somewhere else. I’m doing tai chi for 34 years and still learning.

What are the benefits?
The tai chi Form is taught slowly, allowing you time to absorb the new way of moving. This can then be put into practice into your daily routine. Not that you have to move in every day life like you do in tai chi. That’s not the point. The tai chi movements put your torso, core, hip, back and legs under tremendous pressure, expanding the full range of motion to their optimum in some joints that need it, like the hips, but constricting others that have been over-extended, like the scapula. It’s deeply unnatural! But when you then bring the body back to performing normal daily functions, you will find that they are executed with ease and power if you maintain the awareness and employ the movement principles of, for example, how to lift things more efficiently. Students who do this make rapid progress and report great benefit. When the principles are hard-wired in, you can then export this function to your habitual postures in daily life, preventing the relentless pull of gravity upon your spine, and working with it, to balance both sides of your body in a poised totality of flexible, resilient and relaxed motion, what is called "tension integrity” ( or tensegrity for short) Stamina, reflexes and strength also improve. The benefits of tai chi are not always immediately noticeable, until they are. Not falling, reacting faster, ankles bouncing back into position instead of spraining, no back pain, ever, more confidence, greater breathing capacity (with all those linked benefits), more limb power and control, more awareness of mental states and thus control over emotional outbursts, more appreciation for your body, which we tend to abuse ( for reasons I’ll go into elsewhere), more stamina, improvement in any other sport, calmer mental states, an ease in every life, like doing chores without resentment, in fact using chores as training. The benefits are immense.

Can I do extra training?

Of course. Every morning, I have a strengthening and conditioning class online. Here, we do exercises that complement the tai chi. Some are designed especially to improve tai chi, like deep squats, but of course they are immensely powerful in their own right. Others are culled from different movement arts, like yoga, pilates, Feldenkrais, to give a good joint and muscle workout. Too often, tai chi is weak in several areas. I encourage kettle bell usage for weight training, and more upper body strength training. To hold the torso in place for excellent tai chi requires immense upper back power, and that can’t be gotten through just holding a posture alone. Weight-bearing exercises are critical.

So why not try it out?