Tai Chi: A practical approach to the ancient Chinese movement for health and well-being

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.