Illustrated Elements of Tai Chi

Angus Clark

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Preface

How to Use this Book

Historical Origins

The Birth of Tai Chi

A Healing Art

Seven Qualities

Seven Steps to Progress

Movement, Health, and Body Awareness

The Skeleton

The Muscles

Body Alignment

Stability and Mobility

Body Shape and Posture

Inside the Body

The Circulation

Digestion and Elimination

Sensory Systems

Breathing

The Energy Centers

Preparing for Practice

Moves and Postures

The Language of Tai Chi Movements

Eight Basic Postures

The Stances

Stepping

Balanced Walking

Key Moves

Warm-Up Movements

The Complete Short Form

Beginning

Ward Off Left and Ward Off Right

Rollback

Press, Push

Single Whip

Lifting Hands

Shoulder Stroke

White Crane Spreads Wings

Brush Left Knee and Push

Play Guitar

Brush Left Knee and Push (2)

Punch

Withdraw and Push

Crossing Hands

Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain

Rollback, Press, Push, and Single Whip

Punch Under Elbow

Step Back to Repulse Monkey

Diagonal Flying

Waving Hands in Clouds

Single Whip

Squatting Single Whip

Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg

Separate Right Foot

Separate Left Foot

Brush Knee and Push, Needles at Sea Bottom

Iron Fan

Turn Body, Chop, and Push

Bring Down and Punch(2)

Kick with Heel

Brush Right Knee and Push

Brush Left Knee and Punch Downward

Ward Off Right

Fair Lady Weaves the Shuttle (1)

Fair Lady Weaves the Shuttle (2, 3, and 4)

Ward Off Left

Squatting Single Whip

Step Forward to the Seven Stars and Step Back to Ride Tiger

Turn and Sweep Lotus

Bend Bow to Shoot Tiger

Punch (3)

Withdraw and Push and Crossing Hands

Completion

Branching Out

Working with a Partner

A Fighting Art

Cultivating Energy

Tai Chi for Life

Nature and the Elements

Freestyle Movement

Tai Chi at Work

Tai Chi at Leisure

Achieving Self-Fulfillment

Growing and Changing

Tai Chi Experiences

Styles and Schools

Further Reading/Useful Addresses

Index

Copyright

About the Publisher

Preface

TAI CHI IS a system of exercises or movements to promote health and longevity, and a comprehensive system of self-defense. Its roots are in China, where it evolved over many hundreds of years as a martial art and as a system of self-development. In the past, many of its techniques were preserved for generations as clan or family secrets, but very gradually, knowledge of the art spread throughout China. Now at the start and end of every day in villages, towns, and cities all over Chinese Asia, people can be seen practicing the slow, graceful movements of tai chi in courtyards, squares, and parks.

At dawn and as the sun sets in the evening, Chinese people go out to practice tai chi.

Tai chi was carried to the West in the 20th century, both by Westerners who had studied under Chinese masters, and by Chinese teachers who moved to the West. Nowadays, tai chi is well known in all Western countries, and a wide spectrum of people all over the world practice it regularly. In the West health organizations, schools, colleges, and even businesses now incorporate tai chi into their curricula and their training programs.

A cascade of cosmic energy sweeps through the body in the Squatting Single Whip posture.

Tai chi is a multidimensional art form that has the capacity to touch several important levels in the life of anyone who embarks on its exploration. Tai chi is not just about health or about self-defense, but about the development of the whole individual—body, mind, and spirit. This book will introduce you to tai chi as a system of movement with a variety of health, fighting, and self-development aspects. The roots of tai chi are ancient, but its principles remain applicable in the highly pressurized modern world.

How to Use this Book

Illustrated Elements of Tai Chi is a comprehensive introduction to an ancient Eastern practice that is becoming more and more popular in the West in response to the pressures of modern life. Tai chi is a holistic healing art that embraces body, mind, and spirit. It improves physical and mental well-being through posture training and exercising all parts of the body, combined with encouraging greater awareness of the links between body and mind. Practiced regularly and with dedication, tai chi becomes a system of self-development and encourages a flowering of personal creativity.

Historical Origins

TAI CHI IS rooted in the rich soil of ancient Chinese thought, which is based on observing the way things work in nature. The art embodies the concept of continuous change from one extreme to the other as expressed in the ancient book of wisdom, the I Ching: “When the sun has reached its meridian, it declines, and when the moon has become full, it wanes.” Tai chi stems from the ancient philosophy of Taoism, which arose at a time when China’s earliest martial traditions were emerging, among agricultural peoples whose lives were frequently disrupted by wars waged by contending states. And it was founded on the principle of following the natural way or Tao – the ancient philosophy of Taoism.

The Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu is said to have been Official Archivist of the State of Chou (1st century B.C.E.).

TAOIST PHILOSOPHY

The first written records of tai chi practice do not appear until the end of the first millennium C.E. However, the art is known to have been developed perhaps a thousand years earlier by Taoist recluses who retreated from the world to mountain hermitages to contemplate the meaning of action by studying nature.

Taoism is an ancient Chinese system of thought that attempts to understand the laws governing change in the universe. The Tao, or Way, is the way the universe works, the natural way of things, from the way the clouds form and disperse to the way a person behaves.

The early Taoists sought to cultivate the Tao within themselves. Taoism centers on the concept of effortless action and the power it engenders. Water symbolizes the idea of strength in weakness; it accepts the lowest level without resistance, yet it wears down the hardest obstacles simply by flowing around them. Striving is the antithesis of Taoist action: understanding springs from spontaneous creativity, not from mental or physical effort.

Ideas about the Tao were eventually set down in writing in the Tao Te Ching (Classic of the Way and Virtue), the principal text of Taoism, an anthology of writings produced in about 300 B.C.E. (often referred to as the Lao Tzu).

The philosophers of ancient China sought to make suggestions that might generate ideas and unanswered questions in the mind. Taoist writings are full of paradoxes and contradictions intended to challenge limited and inhibiting views on life, and to open the perceptions.

Taoist thought pervades tai chi. “Plants when they enter life are soft and tender,” says the Lao Tzu. “When they die they are dry and stiff… The hard and strong are companions of death. The soft and weak are the companions of life.” In tai chi, learning the qualities of softness and understanding its power are essential parts of practice.

TAI AND CHI

In Chinese, the characters for “tai” and “chi” express a double superlative, often translated as “Supreme Ultimate” or more simply as “cosmos.” Tai chi is said to have been born from wu chi, the Great Void, the original state of cosmic emptiness. With the birth of tai chi, stillness changed into movement or energy. This movement was generated by the interplay of the opposing yet complementary forces of yin and yang. Tai chi can also be interpreted as “central pole” or “pillar,” like the ridgepole of a house around which all the other parts are arranged and upon which they all depend. T’ai chi is a Western abbreviation of the Chinese term tai chi ch’uan, the full name of the Chinese fighting art, which translated means “fighting art based on the laws of the universe.”

CHANGE AND HARMONY

Chinese philosophy is based on a belief in two opposing but complementary forces, yin and yang. Traditionally, yin has been presented as the feminine force, passive, nurturing, and soft, and yang as the harder, more active masculine principle. Yin and yang are also the forces of harmony and change, and together they form a balanced whole. When they are not in perfect equilibrium, disorder and disease are said to follow. The interrelationship between change and harmony is the guiding principle behind tai chi, which seeks to establish a dynamic equilibrium between the two.

Change is a constant in our lives. The Earth moves unceasingly around its orbit, causing the seasons to change and recreating the cycle of birth, life, and death. From the moment of conception to the time of death the body changes ceaselessly. The blood circulates, air is breathed in and out, mind and body mature and age. Throughout our lives we experience not one moment of absolute stillness. Change brings about rhythm, however – every in-breath is followed by an out-breath – and so harmony is maintained.

This ceaseless interplay between change and harmony is perfectly expressed in the yin-yang symbol. As any condition reaches its fullest point, it already contains the seed of its opposite: in the dark portion is a seed of white; and in the white portion is a seed of black.

In tai chi the interplay between yin and yang, the forces of change and harmony, reveals itself in the changing postures and the quality of the movements. Body weight shifts from one leg to the other, awareness moves from inside to out, empty changes to full, open to closed. The forces work simultaneously, creating a continous and ever-changing dance of energy. Life is filled with countless forces and arrangements of opposites: day and night; sound and silence; giving and receiving; fear and courage; sadness and happiness. Taoism teaches that the concepts of yin and yang offer a view of the way things work according to a natural law of change and harmony.

Everyone practicing tai chi is enjoined to embody natural law in their movements in accordance with the constantly changing balance between yin and yang. It may take time, practice, concentration, and self-love, but the reward is true harmony of body and mind, the achievement of central equilibrium – which is the essence of tai chi.

THE I CHING

The I Ching or Book of Changes is the classic of Taoist thought. It is a book of divination and wisdom, stemming from oracles written more than 4,000 years ago. The I Ching is a collection of commentaries on 64 hexagrams. Hexagrams are drawn by tossing coins. You ask the book a question on any subject, and its answer appears in the hexagram you drew. The text interprets life conditions and situations in terms of yin and yang. Many people find the I Ching assists in their decisions by helping them to make wise choices.

The hexagram Chien from a copy of the I Ching printed in China in the tenth century B.C.E.

YIN YANG QUALITIES

Below is a list of a few of the many yin and yang qualities. It is important, however, not to see any of them as always being a yin or a yang quality, but as generally belonging to either category under certain circumstances. For example, the Earth receives the seed, protects it, and nurtures it, and so is usually categorized as yin, but if you fall and hit the ground you experience it as hard – as yang.

Yin | Yang
Inward | Outward
Smooth | Rough
Holding | Sending
Receiving | Giving
Listening | Speaking
Dark | Light
Earth | Sky
Soft | Hard
No boundaries | Clear boundaries

The Birth of Tai Chi

ONE TRADITION SAYS that tai chi originated some 5,000 years ago during the reign of China’s mythical first emperor, Fu Hsi. Exercises for health are described in a collection of classic writings attributed to one of his successors, the legendary Yellow Emperor, Huang Ti, who is said to have founded the traditional Chinese system of medicine. The principles of the art were established by Taoist recluses who retired from the world to live as hermits. And it evolved during turbulent periods in China’s history as a martial art called t’ai chi ch’uan.

Although tai chi is thought to have originated before the first millennium, the earliest known references date from the T’ang Dynasty (618–960 C.E.). They describe “patterns” of tai chi practiced by recluses who had retired to China’s mountain regions.

The early tai chi teachers remain semi-mythical figures. Chang San-feng is no exception, a colorful figure, said to have been more than 6 feet tall and a powerful fighter. No one knows whether he really existed or when he lived. Yet, he is credited as the founder of a spiritual fighting art called Wudang kung fu.

Three founding fathers of Taoism, the ancient Chinese philosophy on which tai chi is based.

History records that Chang San-feng studied under a Taoist recluse living in the northwest of China, then studied martial arts at the Shaolin Temple Monastery near Zhengzhou in modern Henan.

It is said that in tai chi a process leads the player from body to mind to spirit, and eventually back to the Great Void to merge with the cosmos. Chang San-feng followed this path, which led him to further studies at the Purple Summit Temple on the Wudang Shan, a mountain held sacred by Taoists. Chang San-feng is said to have spent nine years there studying nature, and was struck by the martial potential of yielding while watching a fight between a snake and a bird. He modified his kung fu style, replacing many of the physical training methods with mind-focusing techniques such as visualization, and the cultivation of energy through qigung. From this point, China’s “soft” fighting arts – ba gua, hsingi, and t’ai chi ch’uan – developed.

As the peaceful and prosperous Ming Dynasty declined in the 1600s, to be replaced by conquerors from Manchuria, hand-to-hand battlefield combat was a frequent reality and personal combat skills were at a premium. Foremost among the soft, or internal, fighting styles was the Chen style of tai chi, founded by Chen Wang-t’ing, a soldier in the imperial Ming armies who served under a respected general, Ch’i Chiguang. Ch’i wrote the Classic of kung fu, setting out the principles of what became Chen style. However, it is also claimed that Chen studied under the author of the now-classic Treatise on T’ai Chi Ch’uan, Wang Tsung-yueh, whose lineage could be traced back to the legendary fighter Chang San-feng.

By the 1800s tai chi was at its zenith as a fighting art, and the Chen style was well established. However, it was still taught only to members of the Chen family. In the early 1800s a student from a poor family, Yang Lu-ch’an, worked in the household of the clan head, Chen Chang-xing. where he spied on tai chi sessions. One day he offered to fight a stranger who had challenged Chen Chang-xing. Yang fought so well that it was obvious that he had been secretly learning the Chen style. Chen accepted Yang as a student.

Yang Lu-ch’an traveled China as a Chen family representative, offering challenges to fighters, and was nicknamed “Ever-Victorious.” He is said to have been appointed to teach Chen-style t’ai chi ch’uan to the household of the Ch’ing Emperor. Chen style is dynamic and physically demanding. To adapt the style for courtiers who had not trained from early youth Yang omitted the more vigorous movements, creating a gentler form of tai chi. Today, while Chen is recognized as the oldest of the three main tai chi styles practiced today, a shorter version of Yang’s style is most widely taught.

An outstanding teacher who bridged the classic tai chi styles with 20th century development is Cheng Man-ching. In the 1930’s Cheng, a disciple of Yang Cheng Fu, condensed his teacher’s form of 108 moves down to a more managable 37. He opened a school in New York in the 1960’s and as a result was most instrumental in bringing tai chi to West. Another short version of the Yang style was created in 1949 by the Washu Council of China, known as the Peking 24 step.

The third style was developed by Yang’s student, Wu Yu-hsiang, who also studied with the Chen family, so his style incorporates features of both. These three styles have given rise to numerous derivatives.

TAI CHI SPREADS WORLDWIDE

During the 1800s t’ai chi ch’uan flourished and the classic schools were established. New warfare technology diminished tai chi’s role as a battlefield art so that the tai chi families no longer needed to keep their arts secret. Since 1900 tai chi has become accessible to ordinary Chinese people, and has spread westward, to North America, Australia and New Zealand, and into Europe.

A Healing Art

TAI CHI IS best known in the West as a system of exercises to benefit health, prevent degenerative illnesses, and promote longevity. It stimulates circulation, aligns misplaced bones, mobilizes the joints, stimulates and maintains vital organs, and improves balance and coordination. It improves the breathing, which revitalizes body and brain. But tai chi is a holistic practice and it also trains the mind to focus and concentrate. It widens sensitivity and the capacity to feel, so that people who practice become more awake, alive, and responsive.

A few minutes of gentle massage can release tension and remove pain.

The following pages show many different ways in which tai chi can benefit health of body and mind. Tai chi works with the body to support and encourage its natural capacity for healing. Practicing the techniques correctly raises chi, or life energy, which strengthens the immune system and improves health, and jin or whole body energy, also called intrinsic energy, which improves coordination.

Tai chi movements build energy gradually. Tai chi movements generate warmth, often accompanied by a sense of fullness. After perhaps half an hour of practice the body may feel as if it is humming. After a training session this can be felt as heat energy in certain parts of the body, especially the hands, which seem to radiate heat.

HEALING OTHERS

Massage for tai chi can be reassuring, so offering to massage relatives or friends is a way of helping them through touch. Explore the following methods for yourself and discover how the healing energy generated in tai chi practice can help you, your friends, and family.

Foot-holding and intuitive foot massage

The simple technique of foot-holding embodies the principle of “not doing” perfectly. For the best effect the person to be massaged should lie down comfortably, or, if this is not possible, sit in a chair with the knees and legs supported on a stool or cushions. Rest your hands on the other person’s ankles or feet and do nothing for at least 10 minutes. Notice how energy builds in both bodies. This demonstrates the two-way nature of healing and the positive feedback that begins with tai chi practice. Intuitive foot massage is stimulating and comforting. Simply massage the other person’s feet in any way that occurs to you.

Dispelling a headache

Ask your friend to sit comfortably. Rest your right hand on his or her forehead and your left hand on the back of the neck, and keep your hands still for at least three minutes. Now move your hands about 9 inches away from your friend’s head and neck, imagining them offering a healing space into which the “disease” of the headache can melt. Finish by placing both of your hands in light contact with your friend’s head for about a minute.

When tai chi is practiced regularly, a combination of mindset, visualization, body shape (the positions made by the body), and movement create the conditions for streams of energy to flow vigorously through the body, stimulating the internal systems. It is said in the ancient writings on tai chi that the chi (life energy) follows the mind – each posture cultivates a different kind of energy flow, depending on visualization and the body shapes it makes. The hands are transmitters for this energy, and become charged by the large amounts of information that pass through them.

Healing is a natural force that cannot be made to take place, any more than a plant can be made to grow. The role of the individual in the process is to try, through tai chi, to create the conditions in which energy can flow, and to give the body time to heal itself.

MASSAGE

The idea in massage for tai chi is to develop your spontaneity and intuition for self-healing. There are no special strokes to apply, and you need not worry about direction or pressure of stroke. Begin by following your own feelings about what to do. Rub briskly if you want to, or stroke gently.

MASSAGING THE FACE

Bring both hands to your chin and slowly draw them up over your face, back through your hair, and down your neck. Repeat five times.

MASSAGING THE EARS

Rub the lobes of each ear vigorously, then run your finger and thumb around the rim of the ear and back again to each ear lobe.

MASSAGING THE EYES

Close your eyes and (always with clean hands) stroke the upper eyelids lightly with the middle finger from close to the top of the nose out to the side of the head. Repeat this action at least seven times, then stroke the bottom eyelid in the same way.

MASSAGING THE FEET

Massaging your feet stimulates the nerve-endings and is relaxing and comforting. Hold or rub your feet one at a time for at least two minutes each.

MASSAGING THE HANDS

Massage stimulates the many nerve-endings in the hands, improving the circulation and bringing life to them. Gently or vigorously rub your hands. Pay attention to each finger and both thumbs, the palms, and the backs of the hands.

The feet work hard, yet they tend to be neglected. They benefit from massage, especially before and after practice.

SELF-HEALING

Tai chi is a healing art and just practicing it generates the energy that makes healing possible. The following exercises act as a useful complement to this aspect of tai chi. They can be done at any time, but they are especially effective immediately after practice.

HANDS ON

1 Place your left hand on the lower tantien energy center, just below the navel, and your right hand on top of it. Rest in this position for two to five minutes. Concentrate on gathering into yourself and recharging your batteries.

HANDS ON

2 Release your hands, place your right hand on the lower tantien and your left hand on the center of your chest. Again, hold this position for two to five minutes, concentrating on gathering into yourself and charging your batteries.

Seven Qualities

EVERY POSTURE IN tai chi is a combination of seven basic qualities. Central to these qualities is the concept of yin and yang, the forces of change and harmony. Like yin and yang, the basic qualities of tai chi are almost all polarities: open and closed; full and empty. The exception is the seventh, central equilibrium. Consciousness of these seven qualities pervades every aspect of a posture. They are the focus of the mind, they are expressed in the movements, and they are the message communicated through the very spirit of the posture.

The nonstop sequence of movements called the form is the essence of the art of tai chi. The postures are in a state of perpetual transformation, a cycle of harmony and change. A posture begins, grows, reaches a fullness, and starts to empty, ready for the growth of the next one.

To fulfil their task of restoring equilibrium between yin and yang, the movements of the form must be executed with the correct technique and mind intent (attitude). Often for a beginner, body and mind are too fully occupied with learning the sequence of movements and the technique to experience the qualities of each movement. So, to accompany the form practice, experiment with moves that develop a sense of feeling, such as relaxing your muscles and moving your weight from one side to the other.

Balance improves by standing on each leg in turn for a few minutes each day. This strengthens the legs and improves the coordination, but it also makes you feel different. Physical equilibrium infiltrates the mental and emotional spheres of your being.

All postures contain the polarities of open and closed. Open is generally associated with gathering energy and closed with releasing. At each moment every part of the body is either open or closed, so studying one’s own posture helps in understanding the concept. Bringing the hands together as if clapping, carries the feeling of closed. Open is felt when lifting the arms outward as when welcoming friends.

The polarities of full and empty give the body mobility. In tai chi balance is held in one side, leaving the other free to move. The balance empties from one side and fills the other, as the exercise Balanced Walking demonstrates, increasing mobility. Open or closed, the body must be in balance.

Without equilibrium a posture will lose its structure, becoming too open or too closed. Structure lends strength to a posture. Central equilibrium is the foundation of every stance and the hub of every movement. When a posture is based on central equilibrium, the body is aligned between earth and sky, so it is perfectly balanced.

Beginners unfamiliar with these ideas find it hard to combine the mental concept with the physical experience. Familiarity makes these qualities more and more interesting, however, since they affect almost every aspect of every tai chi movement. Familiarizing yourself with them therefore needs to become part of regular practice.

EXPERIENCE YOUR BODY SHAPES

Create your own body shapes to express the qualities of yin and yang described previously. As a guide for yin, use soft, round, smooth, flowing shapes to embody the qualities. For yang use hard, angular, and linear shapes as your guiding concepts. Play with all these possibilities and add your own movements.

You can discover how open and closed feel when expressed as movement. As you practice, the polarity intensifies the experience of the movement.

The second exercise expands the first to make greater demands on your imagination. Imagine yourself as an empty vessel; picture the reality of fullness.

YIN BODY SHAPE

YANG BODY SHAPE

OPEN AND CLOSED

1 Stand with your feet apart, lift your arms up and out in a welcoming gesture, and imagine each body part and your feelings opening up.

OPEN AND CLOSED

2 Slowly draw your arms in, crossing them over your chest, contemplating this closed position. End by lowering your arms and standing erect for a while.

FULL AND EMPTY

1 Imagine colored liquid filling you from your feet up. Experience every cell in your body expanding as it rises, moving your arms out as if you are inflating.

FULL AND EMPTY

2 Then close your eyes and imagine your body is hollow. Visualize yourself becoming emptiness.

Seven Steps to Progress

TAI CHI OFFERS more than exercises for health, it also provides a program for self-development. The influential teachers Cheng Man-ch’ing and Chi Chiang-tao mapped out a sevenfold path to tai chi practice. For just as the postures are composed of seven basic qualities, so there are seven dimensions to practice, seven steps to progress through the form.

Tai chi teaches you to respond to a partner’s movements. Sumo wrestlers use force against force.

Imagine trying to stop the flow of a river or make it flow faster. The way of tai chi is always to flow with the river. Beginners may be surprised to find that they have been conditioned to fight the river’s natural flow, to use force against force. We are trained to keep to timetables and meet deadlines rather than follow the natural rhythms of our body and mind.

Tai chi teaches people to correct this imbalance by becoming alert to intelligence from within while learning to listen to what is happening outside and to respond to others. It teaches patience, the ability to wait, poised and quiet, for the right moment to move or act.

When tai chi movements are performed correctly, they work to calm and focus the mind, so that mind, energy, and body work in harmony. The seven dimensions of tai chi practice are described next, and represented on the graph.

MAPPING TAI CHI PRACTICE

The seven dimensions of tai chi practice, described previously, may be represented by a graph on which you map your progress along the path to natural way. The vertical axis measures your progress on a scale from 1 to 10. A teacher might help you assess your abilities in each area. Draw a new graph to review progress after a year. Your tendency to use force against force should have fallen and your energy and coordination have risen.

FORCE AGAINST FORCE

Are you trying to dominate by blocking your partner’s responses, or responding too quickly, before your partner stops pushing? If so, you are using force against force. In this interaction you enter into a dialog, inviting your partner to respond to your push. Do not try to force one. When receiving a push, listen as the movement unfolds, knowing that each push has its lifetime. Do not stop it by force, but move in response to the other person. This is the natural way.

CORRECT TECHNIQUE

Although the rules of tai chi are challenging, they are effective. Hands and feet need to be correctly aligned, placed, and arranged; doing this enables you to reap the richest reward from practice. And bear in mind that improvement often comes without a struggle. Working on the mind, for instance, sharpens concentration, which brings about improvements in technique.

JIN OR WHOLE BODY ENERGY

Beginners feel all left feet. As practice evolves, feet, legs and pelvis, spine, arms, and hands feel more connected, and movements of head and body begin to feel coordinated. There comes a time when breathing and movement of all parts of the body follow one rhythm, and this cohesion is jin (whole body energy).

CHI OR LIFE FORCE ENERGY

Tai chi movements stimulate the chi circulating in the body and the musculoskeletal system, exercise the internal organs, and open the meridians, allowing chi to build. Resting the mind quietly in the lower tantien energy center after practice also builds chi. People often feel contentment and greater vitality after practice.

MIND

Cultivating awareness is the key to mind control – if your mind keeps returning to one of the day’s events while you are practicing, acknowledge it. Notice where your mind is directed as you move. Soon, there will be moments when it becomes absorbed in the moves you are making, and the moments will extend to minutes. Then you find your mind making visualizations at will.

SPIRIT

There is a dynamic equilibrium between earth and spirit in tai chi. The way to spirit is through the earthing of the body, and the stronger the connection with the earth, the greater the possibilities for spirit. One of the joys of practice is allowing the body to radiate the spirit that powers each posture – the spirit of fire or of clarity. Enjoy the spirit of the moment; you may feel poised, like a cat about to pounce, then you might become quiet, nurturing the spirit inside.

NATURAL WAY

Follow the natural way to emerge into the seventh dimension. Let go of the binding patterns of force against force, become receptive to the natural way of things, and learn to wait for the right moment to move. Attaining natural way is a sevenfold process. The qualities work together to realign the whole person toward natural way.

MIND GAME

This visualization may take a while to become real, but it will show how your mind and your energy can work together. Turn your left palm toward you. Point the fingers of your right hand toward your left palm keeping them about six inches away. Imagine the fingers of your right hand are brushes. Paint strokes very slowly over your left hand. At first you may not sense anything, but soon you will feel the light brush strokes moving across the sensitive palm of your hand as clearly as if you were really painting it.

Movement, Health, and Body Awareness

THE BODY IS an extraordinary, wonderful instrument. It is mechanically well designed and physically intricate, yet it also houses the spirit. The body bestows on its owner the gift of movement, yet people living a modern lifestyle rarely if ever make the most of this ability, and many have forgotten or never discovered their bodies’ capabilities. Yet not only is the body designed to move, it needs to, in order to stay healthy. Tai chi provides a form of exercise that offers a remedy for the ills of modern living, a supportive answer to the body’s need to move.

While they are still developing in their mother’s womb, unborn infants know how to move. They swim, dance, push, wriggle, and kick. Immediately after birth, babies move instinctively and without inhibition, and during the early years, movement plays an essential part in childhood learning and personal development. Young children crawl, roll, totter, and fall; as they grow they play on swings, slides, roundabouts, and with each other. A child’s world is largely body-based.

Relatively few adults in modern industrial countries still have to cut hay, harvest crops, fetch water, or chop wood by hand in order to survive. Most are relieved of such tiresome tasks and chores by modern economic organization, which uses machines to perform repetitive jobs, releasing people to attend to tasks carried out by telephone, pager, fax, or computer, reached by automobile, rail or air link, e-mail or internet. Many are not forced by their work to stretch or stress their bodies. Problems tend to begin shortly after the point where demands cease to be made of the body. Arthritis, for example, is associated with under-exercising the joints. One physiologist has estimated that 150 years of good service could normally be expected from the superbly designed joints of the human frame. Yet they waste away, working at a fraction of their potential, while the body sits on office chairs or lounges on sofas.

A sedentary lifestyle now can mean mobility problems later on in life.

By placing emphasis on mental achievement and a globalizing electronic culture, contemporary living draws energy from the body into the head, simply because exercising the mind draws blood to the brain. The ratio of mental and emotional stimulation to physical activity was reversed during the 20th century, and for many the reversal took place in fewer than 50 years. Modern work stresses the mind but fails to work the body, making true rest difficult to achieve.

Western society today is predominantly sedentary. Anyone doing an office or a driving job is required to sit for long periods. Then, at the end of the day they rest in a sitting position, unlike most animals, which tend to rest lying down. Tribal peoples who retain their ancient customs often rest by squatting, kneeling, or lying. Modern people sit on a chair, on the tail of the spine, a position that far from being restful is a kind of slump. In time, this bad posture can result in a tendency to asthma, lower back trouble, and prolapsed (displaced) internal organs.

Sitting back to relax and watch TV sets up another dynamic. The body responds to the visual stimuli presented on a screen by producing an emotional response in the form of energy that needs to find expression. Aware of the need for an outlet for such unexpressed energy, many people take up some form of exercise. It is all too easy, however, to overreact and pummel the body with exercise. Activity that is too vigorous can shock the body and injure its systems.

Tai chi is a holistic practice, its movements exercise the whole body, not just individual muscles or muscle groups. It works gently to encourage the body's natural harmony.

Tai chi is quality movement. It is physically demanding, yet it works with the body to encourage the gradual developing of strength and reviving of natural openness and coordination. This process is not something that can be hurried, however. Tai chi is an art that needs to be mastered through gradual learning and practice, but the benefits of investing time and effort in it become apparent very early on.

Like a door, the body must be kept moving to prevent its hinge joints – and other types of joint – from seizing up, and tai chi works to condition the elements of the human frame. It promotes greater understanding of the body’s natural alignment and stance, encouraging the habit of good posture. Its movements continually turn the spine, an action that gradually repositions misplaced organs, stimulating them at the same time through an internal form of massage. The tai chi movements dissipate excess nervous tension held in the body and so help balance the nervous system. Through apparently simple exercises, such as standing on one leg, tai chi stimulates the muscle groups to work together. Continued through life it prevents the joints of the hips and limbs from degenerating.

Working out can demand too much of the body without considering its needs and tolerances.

The unique upright stance of humans gives us a greater potential for movements than creatures who walk on four legs. The physical capabilities of humans may seem inferior when in water, yet it is the human who can walk out of the water onto the land, play volleyball, climb a tree, paint a picture, and cook a meal. Each day, our bodies perform wonders for us.

But do we know our bodies? The next section presents some of the workings of the body from a holistic point of view, from the mechanical structure of the frame to the internal systems and the location of the energy centers, and shows how tai chi encourages the development of a personal connection with the body.

The Skeleton

THE BODY’S ARCHITECTURE provides the framework for the extraordinary variety of movement and bodily expression that is tai chi. The art makes full use of the combination of dexterity, flexibility, articulation, and movement capabilities that the skeleton, aided by ligaments, muscles, and tendons, makes possible. Knowing the basics of body architecture will deepen understanding of the tai chi postures. It will also give a sense of wonder at the sheer variety of movements the human body can perform, unparalleled in the rest of the animal kingdom.

The skeleton is the body’s frame, supporting it and giving it shape. The bony cavities of the skull, the rib cage, and the pelvic girdle provide protection for the body’s vital organs – the brain, the lungs, the organs of digestion, and the sexual organs. Design of the skeleton has evolved over millions of years to make it perfectly adapted for movement. The girders of a building are bolted into a rigid framework, but the skeletal bones are connected by joints held together by ligaments and operated by muscles. This system gives the body mobility.

Tai chi actively increases mobility in all the joints of the body, maintaining an especially strong focus on the ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists, and spine. It achieves this mainly by encouraging the joints to open, that is, to relax completely.

Bone is living tissue made of active cells served by blood vessels and nerves, and the tissues in its spongy center carry out the vital task of making bone marrow. The red blood cells, which transport oxygen, are formed in the bone marrow along with white blood cells, which fight infection. Bones are fundamental to the body’s immune system.

Tai chi attributes another important function to the bone marrow. The teacher Cheng Man-ch’ing described the cultivation of chi in the lower tantien energy center, how it warms the fluids of the body and fills the hollow spaces of the bones. An adhesive substance forms, which turns into marrow and plates the insides of the bones like nickel or gold, giving them greater weight and pure hardness.

THE BONES

All bones begin as flexible cartilage, which forms in the womb. As the baby grows the cartilage is gradually converted into bones, which continue to lengthen and grow until the end of the teen years. A baby’s skeleton has more than 350 bones, many of which eventually fuse, so that an adult’s skeleton has only 206 bones.

THE SPINE

The spine is made up of 33 bones but only 25 joints because the last four bones are fused to form the coccyx (tail bone) and the five bones above them are fused to form the sacrum. Each bone is called a vertebra, and the vertebrae form groups, each of which differs slightly in its function. The vertebrae are separated by disks of cartilage, forming a slightly movable joint. These cartilaginous joints work together, allowing the spine to move forward, backward, and sideways. The spinal cord, a bundle of major nerve fibers, travels along a channel through the center of the vertebrae from the pelvis to join the brain.

The coccyx or tail bone consists of five fused bones. Like the sacrum, it moves only during pregnancy.

The bones, or vertebrae, and joints of the spine.

THE SACRUM

The broad shield-shaped bone at the base of the spine transmits the weight of the body from the fifth lumbar vertebra sideways to the pelvic girdle. The sacrum “sacred bone” forms the bottom bend of the spine’s s-curve. It forms a slightly movable joint with the fifth lumbar vertebra, but its side “wings” fit perfectly into the corresponding surfaces of the pelvic girdle, and ligaments secure the sacroiliac joints so firmly they are almost immobile. The sacrum is fundamental to the mechanics of tai chi movement.

THE JOINTS

The body has many other moving joints (see below). Although tai chi movements exercise all the body’s joints, they focus on opening and exercising the joints of the ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, and wrists, and on maintaining the mobility of the multi-jointed spine.

Ball and socket joint

A ball and socket joint is where the rounded head of one bone fits into a socket or hole in the adjoining bone. Ball and socket joints at the shoulders and hip allow the arms and legs almost 360° of movement.

Hinge joint

The knee, toes, fingers, and elbow are examples of hinge joints, which permit bending and straightening in one direction. A rounded bulge in one bone fits into a corresponding hollow in an adjoining bone. The two bones are held together by ligaments and encased in a capsule filled with a lubricating fluid.

Pivot joint

The first two cervical vertebrae in the neck form a pivot joint. A protuberance in the second cervical vertebra, called the axis, fits into a ring formed in the vertebra above it, called the atlas, allowing the neck to pivot from side to side.

The Muscles

ONE OF THE first things people notice when they start tai chi is that their legs begin to feel different. To some it can be a shock to find that the gentle, flowing movements, so attractive to watch, can require such hard work from the muscles of their thighs and calves. But it is the demands made on the muscle groups of the legs combined with the ability to fully relax muscles elsewhere in the body that gives tai chi its unique grace of movement.

Gymnasts may seem to achieve the impossible, but they are in fact demonstrating the full flexibility that the skeletal muscles can achieve.

We often need to retrain some of the muscles under our conscious control through tai chi, especially those of the lower limbs, which play a major role in bodily expression. For this reason, after a tai chi posture is learned there may be a time-gap before it can be performed with real ease. This is the maturing time the muscles need to strengthen and learn the new movements.

The muscles execute commands from the brain carried along the motor nerves. For the muscles to be able to react so quickly, the nervous system maintains them in a half-alert state called muscle tone, ensuring that voluntary movements are not started from cold.

This link with the nervous system means that emotional stress registers in the muscles, however. Feelings of fear or anxiety show as a measurable rise in muscle tone. This reaction is appropriate as a “fight-or-flight” response, enabling the body to react instantly to an emergency, but people who suffer from recurrent fear or anxiety may be held in a permanent state of tension and find it hard to rest and impossible to relax, a state of chronic stress,

On one level tai chi deals with stress by relaxing the muscles. “Soft” does not mean flaccid, but a way of using muscles exactly as required for each movement. This allows a release of unnecessary muscular tension. More fundamentally, however, tai chi teaches people to relax the body instead of tensing in stressful situations. This is a major benefit of partnerwork. By repeatedly giving and receiving a push, each partner is offered an opportunity to transform the tension it raises into an alert and dynamic relaxation. With training they discover that a more effective way of dealing with a push is to embrace it rather than deny it. The practice strengthens mental and physical confidence, so that body and mind become reprogramed, reacting with the fight-or-flight response only in moments of real danger. The overall level of tension in the body falls significantly.

Tension in muscles is normal, enabling us to stand and walk. As one group of muscles tenses for action, another relaxes. Normal muscular tension is also beneficial, since in well-exercised legs it will stimulate the upward flow of blood circulating through the veins and lymph flowing along vessels rising from the feet and legs to the heart. The deep veins of the legs send blood flowing upward against the force of gravity to the heart. During exercise, the moving muscles press against the wall of the veins, acting like a pump to speed the blood flow through them. They have the same effect on the lymph vessels.

THE VOLUNTARY MUSCLES

Tai chi is concerned with the muscles we use consciously when we move. These are the voluntary muscles, attached by tendons to the skeleton. Tai chi encourages the muscles to work together. This is believed to promote the development of jin, or whole body energy.

THE VOLUNTARY MUSCLES

Body Alignment

ONE OF THE first benefits of tai chi is a rapid and noticeable improvement in basic posture. Tai chi encourages students to key into the natural design of the body. It restores an awareness of alignments that enable the frame to function with greater ease and strength. Most children enjoy a natural relationship with the body, but as they grow up, some lose this freedom and begin to move awkwardly, or gradually forget how to move in a natural and unrestricted way. Exploring body mechanics helps mind and body to regain some of these lost abilities.

The body is flexible and mobile. Its frame is designed to enable it to sit, lie, stand, walk, run, jump, lift, and carry, and its postural alignment enables the body to perform its movements in a dynamic relationship with gravity.

The human frame is the structural system of skeleton, tendons, ligaments, and muscles, which give the body its shape and alignment when moving or still. The frame is not inert like the frame of a building, but kinetic. Each bone has its correct position in the skeleton, a certain range of movement, and a specific alignment with its neighboring bones, the tendons and ligaments that hold it in place, and the muscles that make its movement possible. The body works as a whole, so the misalignment of bones affects posture and movement.

Stooping and slumping, lifting heavy weights with the body wrongly aligned, aggressive exercise, and tension all affect the body’s frame. Years of such misuse can undermine its alignment, and this can result in back pain, headaches or migraines, and malfunctioning joints. However, the malfunctions that are caused by poor posture can be prevented and eased by realignment through tai chi.

Tai chi works with gravity, allowing it to anchor the body into the earth, working to restore the frame’s natural flexibility. It achieves this by relaxing muscles and releasing tension all over the body, allowing bones to resume their intended alignment relative to one another. Many people who learn tai chi feel a sense of strength that comes from having restored the body’s natural relationship with gravity and from the fact that bones and muscles that are correctly aligned can be exercised more effectively.

The spine is an excellent example of the body working as a holistic system. Its 33 bones or vertebrae are aligned in an s-shape and its two flexible curves, combined with the ability of the vertebrae to work separately yet together at the same time, give the back its marvelous mobility.

Incorrect alignment of the frame – the bones, joints, and muscles – can lead to structural problems such as slipped disks, back pain, and malfunctions of the joints. Tai chi teaches body awareness, so that good posture when lying, sitting, standing, and moving becomes natural.

STANDING LIKE A MOUNTAIN BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH

This exercise aims to raise awareness of the body’s physical support system, and of the relationship between the parts of the body and their alignment, from the feet on the earth to the head in the sky. The thighs and pelvis meet at the hip joint, the largest in the body. Your hip joints are being asked to “soften” and to open up or gently stretch. Your knees are sensitive to alignment. They act as channels, allowing the force of gravity to pass through. The position of the feet affects the alignment of the frame, which rises from them; and from them descends an imaginary channel that anchors the body to the earth center. Become aware of the relationship between your feet and legs and your upper body.

1 Stand comfortably with your feet well apart. Notice how and where the weight of your body comes down though your feet. Is it toward the toes or the heels, the instep or the outside of each foot, or somewhere in the middle?

2 Rock your weight slowly forward to the front of your feet and bring it back. Repeat two more times. When you stop, allow your feet to meet the earth fully, the weight evenly balanced.

3 Bring your weight to the instep. You immediately feel unwanted strain on your knees. They are misaligned and not designed to work properly in this position. Redistribute your weight evenly across your feet.

4 Realign your knees so they follow the direction of the feet. This maintains the correct relationship between the feet, the knees, and the hips. Feel it by dropping your spine a few inches. Look down to see that your kneecap follows the direction of the toes.

5 Stand upright again. Turn your feet to point slightly outward, and once again drop your spine and bend your knees. Check that your knees are in line with your toes. Notice the effect on your hips when doing this.

6 Keeping your legs and upper body still, rock your pelvis backward and forward, then from side to side. Feel your pelvis floating. Circle it a few times in each direction. The pelvic girdle is basin-shaped, a holder and carrier. Feel the link between your lower pelvis and your hip joints, and the relationship between your pelvis and your feet.

7 Dropping the spine and bending the knees softens and opens the hips. Repeat this movement a few times, allowing your hips to move and open. Feel the connection between feet, knees, and hips. Your feet are anchored to give you stability; your hips allow mobility. Now return your feet to parallel.

8 With your feet planted on the ground, your weight distributed evenly so your knees and toes are aligned, and your pelvis free to move, feel how the spine carries you up through your neck toward the sky. Drop your spine to sit into the earth, relax your muscles downward (yin) and simultaneously feel the upward and outward support of your bones (yang).

9 Lift your arms out a little way away from your body. Imagine your shoulder joints open, letting in space. Feel your arms lift farther out. Explore the movement possibilities of your elbows, then your wrists, then turn your fingertips toward each other. Imagine your arms are growing out from your spine, and make a connection between your fingers.

10 Direct your attention to the top of your head. Soften the muscles here and downward through your body. At the same time imagine the bones of your spine lifting you to this point. Feel the polarity between your feet in the earth and your head in the sky. This keeps your spine open or stretched up and down, so that it falls into its natural curved shape.

Stability and Mobility

HERE, WITH THE HELP of two guided exercises, you can develop a practical understanding of the qualities of stability and mobility. Let your feet meet the earth. Let your knees follow the direction of your toes. Soften your hips. Let your pelvis float and your spine anchor you in the earth and carry you to the sky. These injunctions are the basis of stability and the key to understanding the nature of tai chi movement, for the body’s relationship to the earth is like that of an underwater plant, which is anchored to a rock yet moves with ease in the current.

Many people who begin tai chi are not used to maintaining a low center of gravity, or to using their legs so much. Aching legs are a sign that tai chi is gradually strengthening the limbs. The process works in two ways, so it is through the movements that a beginner develops stability. Trying to deepen the stance by dropping the spine while moving accustoms the legs to work harder and makes it possible to achieve a still lower center of gravity.

This exercise in stability begins with the principles expressed in the posture Stand Like A Mountain Between Heaven and Earth. It ensures every stance or movement is rooted to the earth, but reaches up to the heavens.

STABILITY

This is a two-person exercise, although the role of your partner is to act as an assistant. Ask your partner to build up the pressure very gradually as you learn to deal with it. Before you begin, find the position Stand Like a Mountain Between Heaven and Earth, and take a moment to relax into it.

1 When you are feeling comfortably stable and your body has a sense of wholeness, ask your friend to lean in toward you from the side, gently and slowly.

2 Drop your spine slightly and let your arms move a few inches out to the sides, meeting the weight leaning against you and channeling it into the earth. If your partner leans too heavily against you, you may have to hold off the force with your arm. This should not happen, so rest and begin again.

3 As you become familiar with the feeling of the weight of another body leaning into you from the side and channeling down through your body, ask your friend to roll around you slowly and lean into you from different angles. Notice how you have to make slight changes to your frame to adjust to pressure from different angles.

4 Remain solidly stable as your partner turns while orbiting around you.

MOBILITY

For this exercise you need a safe, comfortable space to move in, and a blindfold. Play some of your favorite, soothing music. While doing this exercise you will be blindfolded, so you will not be able to read these directions at the same time. Rather than try to memorize them, record yourself reading them or ask a friend to read them out to you. Take your time with this exercise. It will probably last 10 to 20 minutes, but there is no time limit. You may find yourself drawn into the meditation for as long as an hour.

1 Stand, blindfolded, imagining you hold a ball of light in your hands. Play with it for a minute. Now imagine the light pouring from the ball into your hands and wrists. Imagine the light soothing and oiling the joints, and massaging your hands and wrists.

2 Invite the light to move up through your arm bones into your elbows, bringing them freedom of movement. Feel the folding, unfolding, and turning movements of this complex joint, and its link to wrists and hands.

3 Follow the light up your arms and pouring into your shoulder joints. Move your arms forward and back, up and down, and out to the sides, exploring their mobility. Think about how each limb is connected from shoulder to finger joint.

4 Feel the light flood from your shoulder joint into your shoulder blades and move to your neck. Relaxing your face and jaw, move your neck in every direction. Then follow the light as it moves up into your jaw and skull. Explore the movement of your jawbone.

5 The light slowly descends your spine, filling each vertebra and spreading along each rib. Explore the movement possibilities of your upper body. Follow the light down to the sacrum and coccyx. As it circles the pelvic girdle, your hips join the dance. Let yourself move intuitively and creatively.

6 Let the light pour into your hip joints, directing your attention to them and supporting their movement. Listen to your pelvis and follow the knowledge that resides in it.

7 Follow the light down each thighbone. Your knees fill with light. It pours down your shin bones to your ankles and feet. Your whole frame is alight and alive, a dancing skeleton.

8 Bring your body to rest. You may feel like standing or sitting, crouching, squatting, crawling, or even rolling on the floor. Notice your mobility as you move into these different positions. Finish by resting in any position for at least one minute. Remove your blindfold.

Body Shape and Posture

THE QUALITIES OF stability and mobility work with perfect synchronicity in the tai chi postures, which combine correct body shape with freedom of movement. The result is a solid strength and flexibility. Tai chi is a holistic practice, so all parts of the body – hips and heels, pelvis and spine, shoulders and hands – work as one.

THE BASIC STANCE

Although every tai chi posture is carried out while standing, the characteristic stance is rather like standing and sitting at the same time. By techniques such as keeping the feet firmly planted on the ground, keeping the knees flexible and never locking them, and dropping the spine, you sit yourself into a stance, and maintain this basic posture while moving. This illustration analyzes the basic tai chi stance, and the guidelines given apply to all the postures. Practice the stance as a static posture often, until you are confident enough to be able to adopt it without practice.

ALIGNING THE HANDS

The following exercise demonstrates the difference between aligning the hands with the forearms and letting them hang down from the wrists.

1 Stand with your arms lifted to chest level and the palms of your hands facing you with the fingertips spread about 2 inches apart from each other. Let your elbows hang close to your sides and your wrists go limp so that your hands drop. Imagine your arms and hands are enclosing something large and cylindrical against your chest.

2 Now lift your hands until they are in line with your forearms. The cylindrical shape begins to fly off.

3 Lift your elbows up and out to the front to bring the shape back without letting your hands flop forward. This time the shape enclosed by your arms is defined by your elbows, shoulders, and spine and not just your arms and hands, so it is defined more strongly. Letting the hands drop isolates them from the rest of the body.

ALIGNING KNEE AND FOOT

In Lifting Hands the rear knee and foot are in perfect alignment when the weight is back. When the weight is forward, as in Shoulder Stroke or Brush Knee and Push, the bent knee should be no farther forward than the toes.

Inside the Body

BY COMPARISON WITH the efficient internal organization of the body, the way most people run their external lives seems chaotic. The perfectly regulated systems that keep the body alive give their unceasing best from the moment of conception to the time of death. Tai chi offers its steady, rhythmic movements as a link between the two. It acknowledges that we are at all times spirit, mind, emotion, and physique. And it reinforces the role of the body’s internal systems by supporting the working of all its organs, from outer skin to heart and brain deep in its interior.

Traditional Chinese medicine recognizes the importance of the kidneys to health, as this illustration of the internal organs shows.

Although the body’s organs function with scarcely an interruption whether the rest of the body is sick or healthy, tense or relaxed, the quality of their functioning fluctuates in ways that often go unnoticed. The health of an organ depends on a network of mental, emotional, and physical conditions. Someone who is feeling good, fulfilled, and wanted by other people will be likely to have well-functioning organs, and, if that person also exercises and follows a healthy diet, excellent health.

Studies show that the body works best when the mind is content, but we have known this instinctively for centuries. Throughout history and across cultural boundaries the liver has been associated with the emotion of anger. Bile, crucial to the breakdown of fats, is abundantly produced by the liver when a person is happy. This sensitive organ reduces its bile production in response to anger.

RELEASE THROUGH TAI CHI

Any tai chi exercise can work toward release of tension, anger, or other pent-up emotions. The third preparatory exercise, the Rainbow Circle, for example, focuses on healing the kidneys. The following exercise is helpful for releasing emotion. It also massages the kidneys and loosens tightness and feelings of rigidity in the spine. Adopt any strong tai chi stance and relax as deeply as you can. Lift your arms as high as you like and turn your body from one side to the other quite vigorously. At the completion of each turn stop suddenly and shout HEY! or SHOO! Feel the release coming through your arms and out of your fingers.

Through regular daily practice and especially through partner practice, tai chi teaches new ways of dealing with anger and other strong emotion. It teaches techniques of self-expression as the best way of achieving this. It is well known that depression can be the result of pent-up anger, and that anger can result from frustration. These emotions must be allowed to flow rather than be blocked. The flow may be generated through speaking, for example, or writing, or painting.

The delicate, intricate kidneys filter about 15 gallons of water and waste products from the blood each day, releasing about 3 pints as urine. They eliminate poisons such as nicotine, and metals, such as mercury and lead. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, the kidneys store life-essence or jing. The adrenal glands, which produce the hormone adrenaline, sit on top of the kidneys, so these organs are associated with fear. This, in turn, is related to willpower. Feelings of timidity can lead to a holding back from life. Working with a tai chi partner is an excellent antidote to timidity.

SHALLOW BREATHING

Breathing is normally powered by the diaphragm, a large, dome-shaped muscle that separates the chest from the abdomen. Its rhythmic movements enable you to draw in as many as 20,000 breaths and 5,000 gallons (500 bushells) of air in a day. If you are in a state of anxiety or depression, however, you do not make use of the diaphragm and other muscles of the lower chest. Breathing takes place mainly in the top part of the chest, and the amount of air you take in is much reduced, so that the body is starved of oxygen and chi, or life energy.

Shallow breathing due to anxiety and tension is a growing problem in modern Western countries. As well as exacerbating imbalances of the mind, such as depression, it undermines health. Not enough oxygen dissolves from the lungs into the bloodstream, and to remain healthy all body tissues need a regular supply of oxygen from the blood. In stressful situations the speed and depth of breathing change, and the natural, cyclical rhythm of breathing is lost. People hold their breath in fear.

Poor breathing means low energy levels, because along with oxygen, the blood supplies the tissues with nutrients. Attempts to raise energy levels by eating more can have the same effect as overloading a choked fire with more wood. What is needed is a reshaping of the fuel, so that more oxygen and nutrients can reach the body’s cells. Tai chi works to restore the habit of natural, deep breathing, to enable the body to release energy most efficiently from the available fuel – the circulating blood. The workings of the body are interconnected, and the quality of the blood depends on the well-being of the vital organs, the health of which is shaped in turn by the quality of the blood they receive.

Tai chi works holistically to improve the functioning of body and mind. It acknowledges emotions as part of the human condition, and as a way of airing them, creating a space in which they can begin to dissolve, opening the way to a happier state. Just as massage can release nervous tension, tai chi can dislodge emotion, superficial or deep-seated, held in the body. Any tai chi exercise can work toward release of tension, anger, or other pent-up emotions. When this happens in practice, it can disrupt a seemingly harmonious state, but having cleared away an emotional block, the body will function better.

The Circulation

TAI CHI PROVIDES the exercise the body needs to maintain its marvelous circulatory systems. First, it stimulates the pumping action of the heart. For many people, an over-sedentary lifestyle results in sluggish circulation of the blood and of the lymph fluid, which supplies the tissues with water and nutrients. Tai chi exercise combined with regular massage provide the necessary stimulants to both.

Muscular tension in well-exercised legs stimulates the return of circulating blood and lymph upward to the heart.

All the cells in the body are bathed in watery tissue fluid in which are dissolved the nutrients they need to live. Tissue fluid circulates in the bloodstream. The pumping action of the heart channels blood along arteries into a network of ever smaller blood vessels down to the capillaries, the smallest blood vessels that reach from the organs deep inside the body to the skin.

Molecules of tissue fluid containing water, oxygen, and essential nutrients can pass through the capillary walls into the minute spaces between the cells. From there they can be absorbed when needed by the surrounding cells.

Tissue fluid containing water, dissolved oxygen, and nutrients such as calcium and glucose passes through the capillary walls to bathe every cell in the body.

All the time, cells excrete excess water and unwanted chemicals such as carbon dioxide through their walls back into the tissue fluid, which drains into the bloodstream through tiny veins called venules. But a proportion of it, along with waste products such as dead cells and bacteria, becomes lymph, a milky fluid mixed with white blood cells, fats from ducts in the intestine, and proteins. Lymph is filtered through lymph nodes packed with disease-fighting lymphocytes or white blood cells.

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