A gentle approach | ||
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Slow & easy
Tai chi advocates a slow and easy approach to both exercise and living.
Moving slowly allows you time to be safe and careful with your movements, to
be fully conscious at all times of what you are doing.
Rushing is very unhealthy and harms the nervous system. Remaining calm is
natural and feels nice. By slowing down you begin to notice things that were
previously just a blur.
Natural range
In tai chi you must always remain within your natural range of movement. Any
stretching is done gently and never forced; the body is allowed to open by
itself, rather than be put under duress.
By encouraging the joints to be free, mobility increases radically and the
body can move more comfortably. Tai chi should never strain or hurt the
body.
Some movements may feel uncomfortable if you have bad postural habits and
this is to be expected - your body is already used to set movements and
poise - and the tai chi is gently changing these.
No exertion
Try this: Clasp your hands in front of your chest as if putting your
arms around somebody. Keep the elbows loose and bent.
Now imagine that somebody is gently tugging your hands away from your back
but keep the scapula relaxed... In the art, this is considered to be the
limit of your natural range.
The feet are similar...
When you step, there must be no weight transference into the heel of the
stepping foot. You should be able to pick the foot immediately back off the
floor without any shift of weight.
Only when the ground is found to be firm - should the weight shift.
Restraint
When things do not go the way we want them to, we are trained to lose our
temper and try to force the outcome we desire.
This is not healthy.
Tai chi fighting
method
In tai chi we are encouraged to allow others to
go their own way. Whenever we encounter an obstacle, we seek to flow around
it and avoid confrontation.
Even in combat we look to use restraint; to do only
as much as is necessary. Why cause harm to another?
The presence of
the Way can be intuitively sensed,
but it cannot be pinned down in any way.
(Thomas Cleary)
Page
created 17 April 1996
Last updated
16 June 2023
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