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
The system was
developed in China and draws upon
taoist
observations,
Chinese medicine and
kung fu.
13 postures are used to move
energy within the body.
Tai chi chuan combines stillness whilst moving to improve
health and calm
the mind.
Great ultimate
The words 'tai
chi' are usually translated to mean 'great ultimate'.
Great ultimate does not really explain anything and is actually a
reference to 'yin/yang', which again means nothing in its own right... both
expressions are way too abstract and easily misunderstood.
This is like the dictionary game where you look up 'car' and it
says 'vehicle', so you look up 'vehicle' and it says 'car'.
You are no closer to understanding the meaning because the words cannot
point to reality.
Our school translates tai chi as 'dynamic balancing' because this term
reflects an ongoing process of change - of physical and energetic
balancing.
Tai chi
This is the Chinese symbol
called 'tai chi':
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 experienced 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 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 'tai chi' - 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 focusses 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 is the movement itself, not the postures.
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Page created 5 March 1998