Tai Chi Chuan Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
| T'ai Chi Ch'uan | |
|---|---|
| in a posture from the Tai Chi solo form known as Single Whip, circa 1918''']] | |
| Chinese Name | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Tàijíquán |
| Wade-Giles | T'ai Chi Ch'üan |
| Simplified Chinese | 太极拳 |
| Traditional Chinese | 太極拳 |
| Cantonese | taai3 gik6 kyun4 |
T'ai Chi Ch'uan, commonly known as T'ai Chi or Taiji (literally supreme ultimate fist.), is a nei chia ("internal") Chinese martial art which is known for the claims of health and longevity benefits made by its practitioners and in some recent medical studies. T'ai Chi Ch'üan is also known as a "soft style" martial art.
T'ai Chi is best known as the slow motion routines groups of people practice every morning in hundreds of parks across China and, increasingly, other parts of the world. In T'ai Chi classes one is taught awareness of one's own balance and what affects it, awareness of the same in of others, and appreciation of the practical value in one's ability to moderate extremes of behavior and attitude at both mental and physical levels.
Overview
T'ai Chi Ch'uan is called an art of moving meditation. While its practitioners have historically considered it primarily a style of martial art, T'ai Chi theory and practice is indeed largely formulated in agreement with many of the principles of traditional Chinese medicine. Besides general health benefits and stress management attributed to beginning and intermediate level T'ai Chi training, many therapeutic interventions along the lines of TCM are taught to advanced T'ai Chi students in traditional schools. T'ai Chi Chuan as physical training is characterized by its requirement for the use of leverage through the joints based on coordination in relaxation rather than muscular tension. The slow, repetitive work involved in that process is said to gently increase and open the internal circulation (breath, body heat, blood, peristalsis, etc.). Over time, proponents say this enhancement becomes a lasting effect, a direct reversal of the physical effects of stress on the human body. This reversal allows much more of the students' native energy to be available to them, which they may then apply more effectively to the rest of their lives; families, careers, spiritual or creative pursuits, hobbies, etc.
The study of T'ai Chi Ch'uan involves three primary subjects, in the following order:
- Health - an unhealthy or otherwise uncomfortable person will find it difficult to meditate to a state of calmness or to use Tai Chi as a martial art. Tai Chi's health training therefore concentrates on relieving the physical effects of stress on the body and mind.
- Meditation - the focus meditation and subsequent calmness cultivated by the meditative aspect of T'ai Chi is seen as necessary to maintain optimum health (in the sense of effectively maintaining stress relief or homeostasis) and in order to use it as a "soft style" martial art.
- Martial art - the ability to competently use T'ai Chi as a martial art is said to be proof that the health and meditation aspects are working according to the dictates of the theory of T'ai Chi Ch'uan.
Teachers say the study of T'ai Chi Ch'uan is, more than anything else, about challenging one's ability to change oneself appropriately in response to outside forces. These principles are taught using the examples of physics as experienced by two (or more) bodies in combat. In order to be able to protect oneself using change, it is necessary to understand what the consequences are of changing appropriately, changing inappropriately and not changing at all in response to an attack. Students, by this theory, will appreciate the full benefits of the entire art in the fastest way through physical training of the martial art aspect.
Wu Chien-ch'üan, co-founder of the Wu family style, described the name T'ai Chi Ch'uan this way at the beginning of the 20th century:
"Various people have offered different explanations for the term T'ai Chi Ch'uan. Some have said: 'In terms of self-cultivation, one must train from a point of movement towards a point of quiescence. T'ai Chi comes about through the harmony of yin and yang. In terms of the art of attack and defense then, in the context of transformations of full and empty, one is constantly inwardly latent, not outwardly expressive, as if the yin and yang of T'ai Chi have not divided apart.' Others say: 'Every movement of T'ai Chi Ch'uan is based on circles, just like the shape of a T'ai Chi symbol. Therefore, it is called T'ai Chi Ch'uan.' Both explanations are quite reasonable, especially the second, which is fuller."
T'ai Chi training and techniques
As the name T'ai Chi Ch'uan is held to be derived from the T'ai Chi symbol, the Taijitu or T'ai Chi t'u (太極圖, pinyin tàijítú), commonly known in the West as the "yin-yang" diagram, T'ai Chi Ch'uan techniques are said therefore to physically and energetically balance yin (receptive) and yang (active) principles.
"From ultimate softness comes ultimate hardness." The core training involves two primary features: the first being the solo form or quan or chüan (拳), a slow sequence of movements which emphasise natural movement and relaxation; the second being different styles of pushing hands or tui shou or t'ui shou (推手) for training "stickiness" and sensitivity in the reflexes through various motions in concert with a training partner in order to learn leverage, timing, coordination and positioning when interacting with another. Pushing hands is seen as necessary not only for training the self-defense skills of a soft style such as T'ai Chi by demonstrating the forms' movement principles experientially, but also it is said to improve upon the level of conditioning provided by practice of the solo forms by increasing the work load on students while they practise those movement principles.
The solo form should take the students through a complete, natural, range of motion over their centre of gravity. Accurate, repeated practise of the solo routine is said to encourage circulation throughout the students' bodies, maintain flexibility through their joints and further familiarize students with the martial applications implied in the forms. The major styles of T'ai Chi have forms which differ somewhat cosmetically, but there are also many obvious similarities which point to their common origin. The solo forms, empty-hand and weapon, are catalogues of movements that are practised individually in pushing hands and application scenarios to prepare students for self-defence training. In most traditional schools different variations of the solo forms can be practiced; fast/slow, small circle/large circle, square/round (which are different expressions of leverage through the joints), low sitting/high sitting (the degree to which weight-bearing knees are kept bent throughout the form), for example.
In a fight, if one uses hardness to resist violent force then both sides are certain to be injured, at least to some degree. Such injury, according to T'ai Chi theory, is a natural consequence of meeting brute force with brute force. The collision of two like forces, yang with yang, is known as "double-weighted" in T'ai Chi terminology. Instead, students are taught not to fight or resist an incoming force, but to meet it in softness and "stick" to it, following its motion while remaining in physical contact until the incoming force of attack exhausts itself or can be safely redirected, the result of meeting yang with yin. Done correctly, achieving this yin/yang or yang/yin balance in combat (and, by extension, other areas of one's life) is known as being "single-weighted" and is a primary goal of T'ai Chi Ch'uan training. Lao Zi or Lao Tzu provided the archetype for this in the Tao Te Ching (Dao De Jing in pinyin) when he wrote, "The soft and the pliable will defeat the hard and strong." This soft "neutralization" of an attack can be accomplished very quickly in an actual fight by an adept practitioner. A T'ai Chi student has to be well conditioned by many years of disciplined training; stable, sensitive and elastic mentally and physically in order to realize this ability, however.
Other training exercises include:
- Weapons training and fencing applications employing the straight sword known as the jian or chien or gim (jiàn 劍), a heavier curved sabre, sometimes called a broadsword or tao (dāo; 刀, which is actually considered a big knife), fan, staff, 7 foot spear and 13 foot lance (both called qiāng 槍). Less commonly known weapons still in use are the large Da Dao or Ta Tao (大刀) or Bagua sabre, halberd (jǐ 戟), cane, rope-dart, Three sectional staff and steel whip.
- Two-person tournament fighting (san shou 散手);
- Breathing exercises; nei gong or nei kung (內功 nèigōng) or, more commonly, qigong or ch'i kung (氣功 qìgōng) to develop qi or ch'i (氣 qì) or "breath energy" in coordination with physical movement. These were formerly taught only to disciples as a separate, complementary training system. In the last 50 years they have become more well known to the general public.
- "I would rather maim than kill
- Hurt than maim
- Intimidate than hurt
- Avoid than intimidate."
T'ai Chi styles and history
There are five major styles of T'ai Chi Ch'üan, each named after the Chinese family that teaches (or taught) it:
- Ch'en style (陳氏)
- Yang style (楊家)
- Wu or Wu/Hao style of Wu Yu-hsiang (武家)
- Wu style of Wu Ch'uan-yü and Wu Chien-ch'üan; (吳家)
- Sun style (孫家)
- Wu Tang (武當)
When tracing T'ai Chi Ch'üan's formative influences to Taoist and Buddhist monasteries, one has little more to go on than legendary tales from a modern historical perspective, but T'ai Chi Ch'üan's practical connection to and dependence upon the theories of Sung dynasty Neo-Confucianism (a conscious synthesis of Taoist, Buddhist and Confucian traditions, esp. the teachings of Mencius) is readily apparent to its practitioners. The philosophical and political landscape of that time in Chinese history is fairly well documented, even if the art later to become known as T'ai Chi Ch'üan's origin in it is not. T'ai Chi Ch'üan's theories and practice are therefore believed by some schools to have been formulated by the Taoist monk Chang San-feng in the 12th century, a time frame fitting well with when the principles of the Neo-Confucian school were making themselves felt in Chinese intellectual life. Therefore the didactic story is told that Chang San-feng as a young man studied Tao Yin (導引, py dǎoyǐn) breathing exercises from his Taoist teachers and martial arts at the Buddhist Shaolin monastery, eventually combining the martial forms and breathing exercises to formulate the soft or internal principles we associate with T'ai Chi Ch'üan and related martial arts. Its subsequent fame attributed to his teaching, Wu Tang monastery was known thereafter as an important martial center for many centuries, its many styles of internal kung fu preserved and refined at various Taoist temples.
T'ai Chi in the present
Recently there has been some divergence between those who say they practise T'ai Chi primarily for fighting, those who practise it for its aesthetic appeal (as in the modern, theatrical "Taijiquan" forms of Wushu), and those who are more interested in its benefits to physical and mental health. The Wushu aspect is primarily for show, the forms taught for those purposes are designed to earn points in competition and are mostly unconcerned with either health maintenance or martial ability. More traditional stylists still see the two aspects of health and martial arts as equally necessary pieces of the puzzle, the yin and yang of T'ai Chi Ch'üan. The T'ai Chi "family" schools therefore still present their teachings in a martial art context even though the majority of their students nowadays profess that they are primarily interested in training for the claimed health benefits. T'ai Chi has become very popular in the last twenty years or so, as the baby boomers age and T'ai Chi's reputation for ameliorating the effects of aging becomes more well-known. Hospitals, clinics, community and senior centers are all hosting T'ai Chi classes in communities around the world. Along with Yoga, it is one of the fastest growing fitness and health maintenance activities, in terms of numbers of students enrolling in classes. Since there is no universal certification process, and most Westerners haven't seen very much T'ai Chi and don't know what to look for, practically anyone can learn or even make up a few moves and call themselves a teacher. Relatively few of these teachers even know that there are martial applications to the T'ai Chi forms. Those who do know that it is a martial art usually don't teach martially themselves. If they do teach self-defense, it is often a mixture of motions which the teachers think look like T'ai Chi Ch'uan with some other system. This is especially evident in schools located outside of China. While this phenomenon may have made some external aspects of T'ai Chi available for a wider audience, the traditional T'ai Chi family schools see the martial focus as a fundamental part of their training, both for health and self-defense purposes. They claim that while the students may not need to practice martial applications themselves to derive a benefit from T'ai Chi training, their teachers at least should know the applications well enough to ensure that the movements they teach are done correctly and safely by their students. Also, working on the ability to protect oneself from physical attack (one of the most stressful things that can happen to a person) certainly falls under the category of complete "health maintenance." For these reasons they feel that a school not teaching those aspects somewhere in their syllabus cannot be said to be actually teaching the art itself, and will be much less likely to be able to reproduce the full health benefits that have made traditional T'ai Chi Ch'uan's reputation in the first place.
This is an Article on Tai Chi Chuan. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Tai Chi Chuan T'ai Chi as a form of traditional Chinese medicine
Researchers have found that long-term T'ai Chi practice had favorable effects on the promotion of balance control, flexibility and cardiovascular fitness and reduced the risk of falls in elders. The studies also reported reduced pain, stress and anxiety in healthy subjects. Other studies have indicated improved cardiovascular and respiratory function in healthy subjects as well as those who had undergone coronary artery bypass surgery. Patients also benefited from Tai Chi who suffered from heart failure, high blood pressure, heart attacks, arthritis and multiple sclerosis (See research citations listed below).Citations to medical research
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