Tai chi chuan
What's most traditional, what's most authentic is to do what works. Which means you have to keep updating things. You're not involved in eighteenth century warfare. People aren't attacking you with eight foot spears. Where's the relevance?
(Paul Gale)
Tai chi chuan
Tai chi chuan is a Chinese
martial art.
It was
developed hundreds of years ago and draws upon
taoist observations,
Chinese traditional medicine and
kung fu.
13 patterns of movement are used to express power.
The system is usually abbreviated to 'tai chi'.
Many classes nowadays focus on qigong and form; offering a health-only
approach to the art.
This is fine, but leaves out a massive part of the syllabus.
The word 'chuan' indicates combat.
It is important to remember that a complete understanding of tai chi
requires expert knowledge of self defence as well as health concerns.
Supreme ultimate
This is the Chinese symbol
called 'tai chi' or the 'supreme ultimate':
The symbol contains yin and
yang.
Yin is black and yang is white.
Hard/soft, strong/weak, day/night, male/female are all represented by this symbol.
Within the apparent opposites, part of the other exists.
The symbol represents
balance. Yin and yang join to form a
composite whole.
The art of
tai chi is concerned with the process of balancing yin and yang, of returning the body to
its
natural state.
Understanding yin/yang in terms of tai chi is quite complex and is not
addressed at length until the black belt syllabus.
From wu chi to bagwa
When you hear about yin/yang or
feng shui, it sometimes becomes
metaphysical and highly speculative.
This can lead to a severe
misunderstanding of the principles.
Tai chi chuan and taoism are pragmatic; they cut to the heart of the matter.
Consider: a baby is born and it has no sense of this or that, self or other.
The child would not know its own reflection or see itself as separate from
anything else.
This condition is 'wu chi' - wholeness, undivided.
It is represented by a circle.
Later, the child becomes self conscious and has a sense of self and other,
here and there, this and that, yin and yang.
The world is now divided into apparent opposites (although in reality they
remain whole).
It is the child's perception that has changed.
This condition is 'taiji' - dynamic balancing.
As the child matures its perception changes again; each
scenario is no longer black and white, this or that.
This is 'bagwa' - change.
Everything has variables, permutations, possibilities and choices.
We learn the true meaning of tai chi; that there are no absolutes and the
apparent opposites actually contain aspects of each other.
Structure & movement
Tai chi chuan focuses upon
learning a sequence of movements.
The movements are known as 'postures' and the sequence itself is called
'form'.
The postures train good body usage and promote health.
In tai chi we look for optimal alignment and
relaxation at all times.
Form exists to provide a framework for movement.
The movement must ultimately be allowed to operate without the scaffolding
of fixed postures.
Tai chi chuan is the movement itself, not the postures.
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Page created 5 March 1998