{"id":78,"date":"2008-02-25T02:00:59","date_gmt":"2008-02-25T07:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dontow.com\/wordpress\/?p=78"},"modified":"2009-11-27T22:01:16","modified_gmt":"2009-11-28T03:01:16","slug":"taijiquan-an-introductory-oveview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/2008\/02\/taijiquan-an-introductory-oveview\/","title":{"rendered":"Taijiquan: An Introductory Oveview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this month I was invited to give an introductory overview presentation and a demonstration of Taijiquan at a high school in central NJ to help celebrate the Chinese New Year. Below is a slightly modified version of that presentation. Although much of the material in this article is already contained in earlier articles published in this website, I thought that it is still useful to include this article in the website, because the different aspects of Taijiquan are now described in this single article. If the reader is interested to read more details about any of these aspects, he\/she can find more details about the different aspects in the appropriate article on the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/dontow.com\/wordpress\/category\/taiji\/\">Taiji<\/a>&#8221; page.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>What is Taijiquan<\/strong>: Taijiquan<a href=\"#foot1\">[1]<\/a> was originally invented as a fighting art, i.e., a martial art. In recent years, Taijiquan is often known, especially in the West, as a form of exercise that is good for health. Taijiquan is actually both: A form of exercise that is good for health and a martial art that is good for self defense.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Because of the mostly slow and gentle movements of Taijiquan, its practice has low impacts on the body. This is why Taijiquan can be practiced by young and old, and it has become a favorite health exercise for senior citizens in China.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Taijiquan&#8217;s Origin<\/strong>: There is some uncertainty on how and when Taijiquan was invented. It is possible that it was invented by the Daoist mystic Zhang San-Feng (\u5f20\u4e09\u4e30) about 900 years ago in the Wudang Mountains (\u6b66\u5f53\u5c71) in Hubei Province (\u6e56\u5317\u7701). But it is more likely that it was invented about 350 years ago by Chen Wang-Ting (\u9648\u738b\u5ead), in the Chen village in Chenjiagou (\u9648\u5bb6\u6c9f) in Henan Province (\u6cb3\u5357\u7701).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Different Styles of Taijiquan<\/strong>: There are many different styles of Taijiquan. The original style is the Chen Style, which gave rise to the Yang Style, when Yang Lu-Chan (\u573a\u9732\u7985, 1799-1872) from Hebei Province (\u6cb3\u5317\u7701), went to the Chen village to work, and then for about seven years also learned Taijiquan from Chen Chang-Xing (\u9648\u957f\u5174, a 14th generation Chen). Then Yang went back to Beijing in Hebei Province and taught Taijiquan. Because many of his students were from the imperial court&#8217;s aristocratic class, instead of soldiers, laborers, and farmers, he modified the Chen Style Taijiquan to make it less physically demanding and more suitable for the aristocratic class (but not necessarily decreased its effectiveness as a martial art). During the next hundred or so years, several other leading practitioners of Taijiquan made their own modifications and extensions of the Chen Style Taijiquan and gave rise to the Wu Style (\u5434\u5f0f), Sun Style (\u5b59\u5f0f), and Wu\/Hao Style (\u6b66\u5f0f). Today, the Yang Style is the most commonly practiced Taijiquan style in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Because there are so many different styles as well as different forms even within the same style, it was difficult to evaluate and give scores during competitions. Therefore, certain standardized sets were agreed upon in China. The Simplified Yang Style 24 Form was established in 1956, the first standardized set established.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<strong>Fundamentals of Taijiquan and Relationship to Yin-Yang Theory<\/strong>: As a martial art, Taijiquan makes extensive use of the yin-yang concept, represented by the yin-yang symbol<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/dontow.com\/Archived_Taiji_Articles\/photos\/Taiji_Symbol.jpg\" class=\"aligncenter\" alt=\"Taiji Symbol\" \/><\/p>\n<p>which has two main characteristics:\u00a0 Complementarity and constant change.\u00a0 Complementarity means that the whole is made up of two complementary parts of opposites, such as black and white, large and small, strong and weak, forward and backward, left and right.\u00a0 Constant change means that the complementary components can constantly change into the other.\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nWith respect to martial arts application of Taijiquan, this means that one does not confront an opponent&#8217;s force head on.\u00a0 Instead, the counterattack often allows the opponent to continue in the direction of his force, and utilizes that momentum to cause the opponent to lose his balance. \u00a0For example, a large force from an opponent from the front is countered by a small force in the direction toward the back, or a large force from an opponent from the front is deflected by a small force perpendicular or at an angle to the direction of the original force.\u00a0 This illustrates the &#8220;complementarity&#8221; aspect, and is the basis for the Chinese saying &#8220;four ounces can deflect a thousand pounds.&#8221;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nOnce the opponent senses that he may lose his balance and moves in the other direction, one also changes direction and counterattacks along the momentum of the opponent&#8217;s new motion.\u00a0 Thus one is constantly changing directions and utilizes the yin-yang complement of the opponent&#8217;s motion.\u00a0 This illustrates the &#8220;constant change&#8221; aspect.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nTo facilitate the constant changing of directions, one needs to keep the upper body upright.\u00a0 The changes of directions are accomplished by the movement of the legs.\u00a0 Furthermore, to increase one&#8217;s sensitivity to the opponent&#8217;s movements and intentions and therefore to be able to counterattack more effectively, one needs to keep one&#8217;s body, muscles, and mind relax.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nAnother fundamental aspect of Taijiquan is that the power doesn&#8217;t just come from the strength of the arms, but also from the power and momentum of the movement of the legs and especially the hip\/waist.\u00a0 Coupling this with utilizing the opponent&#8217;s force to counter attack, together with the strategic placements of one&#8217;s legs, arms, and body relative to those of the opponent in order to generate more leverage, a smaller person can defend successfully against a bigger and stronger opponent.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nAs one progresses into Taijiquan, proper breathing is very important, especially in generating more power and enhancing one&#8217;s health.\u00a0 However, beginning students already have too many things to learn and remember, and therefore beginning students are told to just breathe naturally..\u00a0 As one progresses beyond the beginner&#8217;s level, then one should start paying more attention to breathing.\u00a0 The general rule is that when one is exerting force (e.g., pushing out to punch or pushing downward to block\/deflect), one should breathe out.\u00a0 And when one is pulling in or making a movement to set up an attack, one should breathe in.\u00a0 When one progresses to more advanced levels, then in order to generate the power of Taijiquan as an internal martial art, one needs to practice more sophisticated breathing techniques, in particular, lower abdominal breathing, instead of the usual upper chest breathing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Taiji and Health<\/strong>:\u00a0 Because of the slow and soft movements of Taiji, it has low impacts on the body.\u00a0 Therefore, it is an exercise that can be practiced by young and old, including people who may not be completely healthy.\u00a0 Because of its utilization of the yin-yang concepts and because of its gentle movements, Taijiquan as a martial art, unlike other martial arts, can still be effective when people become older, even when they become senior citizens.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThere is another health benefit of Taiji which is often not mentioned.\u00a0 When one does Taiji, one should use the mind to lead the form.\u00a0 This means that even though the Taiji practitioner should remove other thoughts from his mind, he should use his mind to think of the form (how it should be done and why it should be done that way) and to lead the physical implementation of the form.\u00a0 This means that the mind, as well as the physical body, is also being exercised while doing Taiji.\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nIn the last 20 years or so, there has been a lot of scientific research in the west to investigate the health benefits of Taiji.\u00a0 Although not yet definitive, it seems that the research is indicating that there are multiple benefits of Taiji.\u00a0 For example, it can improve muscle strength in the legs and arms, improve balance and flexibility, and reduce the risk of falling, which is especially important for senior citizens.\u00a0 A recent study indicates that Taiji can boost immunity to shingles, a painful nerve condition that is caused by reactivation of the chickenpox (varicella) virus and generally affects people older than 50.\u00a0 The research found that practicing Taiji can increase the effectiveness of the vaccine against the varicella virus.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Taiji, Qigong, and Traditional Chinese Medicine<\/strong>:\u00a0 I want to discuss a little bit about Qigong, a subject that many people might not have heard of.\u00a0 In many Chinese martial arts, especially an internal martial art like Taijiquan, cultivating the Qi in one&#8217;s body is an integral part of advance training, whether it is for health or for martial art.<\/p>\n<p>What is Qi?\u00a0 Qi is often defined as an energy, some sort of bioelectrical energy, that exists inside the human body.\u00a0 However, the effects of Qi are not limited to just inside the body; it can be felt outside of the human body.\u00a0 For example, the strength of the electromagnetic field around the hands of an expert Qigong practitioner could be substantially larger than that of an average person.\u00a0 To some extent, all people have Qi in their body, but the amount may be small, not noticeable, and stagnant.\u00a0 Through appropriate practice, one can increase the amount of Qi in one&#8217;s body and increase the circulation of Qi within one&#8217;s body.\u00a0 It is important to increase the Qi in the body, because Qi in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is considered to be the essence or vital force of life.\u00a0 However, Qi must also be balanced in the body.\u00a0 There should not be an excessive amount of Qi in one part of the body, while at the same time there is a deficiency of Qi in another part of the body.\u00a0 That is why the ability to circulate Qi is so important; it is the mechanism that can keep a proper yin-yang balance of Qi.\u00a0 In modern physiological terminology, balancing the Qi is equivalent to attaining homeostasis.\u00a0 The term &#8220;gong&#8221; means the power to produce an effect via steady practice.\u00a0 Therefore, the term &#8220;Qigong&#8221; can be defined as the practice that increases the Qi and its circulation within the body.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>TCM believes that the development of illness is due to the upsetting of the natural balance (or yin and yang) of Qi inside the human body from pathogenic influences, such as germs.\u00a0 To treat any illness, one needs to eliminate the pathogenic influences.\u00a0 Both increasing the Qi in the body and balancing the Qi in the body will help to fight against the pathogenic influences.\u00a0 Because the Qi imbalance may be occurring in non-adjacent parts of the body, TCM stresses that to heal, one should look for the cause of the illness, and one should not treat only the head if the head hurts, or treat only the foot if the foot hurts.<\/p>\n<p>What is the relationship between Qigong and Taiji?\u00a0 Many of the concepts that are important for Qigong are also important for Taiji.\u00a0 For example, many Qigong exercises are done very slowly while undergoing slow and deep breathing, which is also the case for doing Taiji.\u00a0 The slow movement also allows the body to be in a relaxed state, again also the case for Taiji.\u00a0 In Qigong exercises, the mind is supposed to be freed of scattered thoughts, and the mind should focus on the activities at hand, e.g., the body movements and the breathing.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, the mind is supposed to lead (or regulate) both the body movements and breathing, again exactly the case for Taiji.\u00a0 Because of the many similarities between Qigong and Taiji, many of the exercises for Qigong and Taiji are similar.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, Taiji Qigong is one of the most popular types of Qigong, although there are many other types of Qigong.<\/p>\n<p>Qigong plays a key role in Taiji&#8217;s two main objectives:\u00a0 To improve health and for self defense as a martial art.\u00a0 We have already explained that the ability to increase Qi and to circulate Qi is key to good health.\u00a0 How does Qigong help Taiji to achieve its second objective as a good martial art?\u00a0 Basically, Qigong can increase the martial artist&#8217;s striking power and to train the martial artist&#8217;s body to better resist punches and kicks.\u00a0 The theory behind increasing striking power can be understood in the following way.\u00a0 Dr. Jwing Ming Yang, a Taiji master and the author of about two dozen books on Taiji, said that &#8220;the average person generally uses his muscles at under 40% maximum efficiency.&#8221;\u00a0 The martial artist can use the mind to lead the Qi to the muscles to energize them to a higher level, thus increasing the martial artist&#8217;s fighting effectiveness.\u00a0 Similarly, leading Qi to the skin and muscles can enable them to better resist a blow without injury.\u00a0 This is clearly demonstrated in those martial arts exhibitions when a martial artist can resist a pointed spear pointed to a spot below his throat (the esophagus area).\u00a0 As a matter of fact, the martial artist not only can avoid the puncture of that area of the body, but can actually bend the spear.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n<strong>In Summary<\/strong>:\u00a0 On the one hand Taiji is a simple form of exercise.\u00a0 On the other hand, Taiji is also subtle and complex both as an exercise or as a martial art.\u00a0 Taiji is an exercise that can be practiced by both young and old.\u00a0 Unlike most other exercises, one doesn&#8217;t have to stop practicing it as one becomes a senior citizen.\u00a0 Besides being an exercise that is excellent for health, Taiji is also a good martial art.\u00a0<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a id=\"foot1\">[1]<\/a> \u00a0Also known as Taiji, Tai Chi, T\u2019ai Chi, Tai Chi Chuan, or T\u2019ai Chi Ch\u2019uan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this month I was invited to give an introductory overview presentation and a demonstration of Taijiquan at a high school in central NJ to help celebrate the Chinese New Year. Below is a slightly modified version of that presentation. Although much of the material in this article is already contained in earlier articles published [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":651,"href":"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dontow.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}