Tai Chi

It’s a strange world isn’t it? I’m doing something that a year ago I thought looked really boring and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I was vaguely aware that Tai Chi was the slow exercise thing that Chinese people seem to do quite a lot in parks and open spaces and it didn’t appeal to me at all. Last year I got involved with an organisation on the internet which I suspected had a rather sinister ulteria motive. Having always fancied myself as a latter day Mata Hari I was rather tempted to do some undercover research. I was talking to my son about it and he said that if I wanted to go and play at spies I should learn Tai Chi. He is ...

I cant say that until around half a year ago I had truly heard of Tai Chi. It sounds like something to go with your spare ribs when your ordering a takeaway but the truth is that this a Chinese exercise. There is very little coverage of Tai Chi and what it is really about and I have only every seen a few snippets here and there of it on television, unlike Yoga which is some ways is very similar and yet has huge amounts of coverage due to the rich and famous such as Madonna and Geri Halliwell trying it. So what is Tai Chi? It was developed around 4000 years ago in China and it is a form of stretching exercise. There are two forms of Tai Chi, the martial form that ...

Tai chi chuan or tai chi is the martial art for thinkers. As much a spiritual activity as a physical one, it has been called "moving meditation". Its steady and continuous flowing movements are a slo-mo version of ancient combat techniques. Tai chi's inventor, a 14th-century monk named Chang San Feng, foreshadowed judo by several centuries when he saw the self- defence potential of using an attacker's own energy to rebuff him. For this reason tai chi is closely bound to the Chinese philosophy of opposing but balanced forces. Supposedly enhancing the flow of "chi", or life force, around your body, tai chi is certainly a healty way to unwind ...