Tai Chi Blog - by Master Paul

Hua Tuo lived in the second century A. D. and was one of the outstanding medical scientist in the history of China. He was the first person in China and the world to use anesthesia. The herbal anesthetic methods used in China today were inspired by the Mafei Powder developed by Hua Tuo.

Another of Hua Tuo’s outstanding achievements is the “five-animal frolic” (wu qin xi), which he developed on the basis of his many years of experience and those of his predecessors. He advocated active physical exercises, thus beginning the practice of health-care gymnastics in China. He believed that “the body needs exercise, but it should not be excessive. Motion consumes energy produced by food and promotes blood circulation so that the body will be free of diseases just as a door hinge is never worm-eaten.” Hua Tuo also pointed out that perseverance in doing exercises would “promote blood circulation” and “enhance the appetite.”

On his medical tours, he took special notice of animals’ movements – the way birds flew and beasts ran and leaped. He tried to imitate the vivid and lively movements of the tiger leaping, the deer running, the bear climbing uphill, the monkey hanging onto trees, and the bird spreading its wings to fly, thus developing the “five-animal frolic,” an ancient form of gymnastics. He not only kept up the exercises himself, but also taught them to his students, Wu Pu and Fan A.

Wu Pu practiced the exercises with his teacher for years and still had “good hearing and sight, and strong teeth” at the age of 90. The “classical exercises of changing the muscles and tendons” (yi jin jing) and “Tai Chi boxing” (tai ji quan) invented by later generations all evolved from the “five-animal frolic.”

Qigong therapy is a highly effective therapeutic type of body workout that utilizes external and internal Qi (the vital energy or the universe which flows through the human body and all living things.) It is based on the same system which is used in acupuncture, a traditional form of Chinese medicine and many other body workout therapies. Qigong therapy aims to promote self-healing, maintain good health, and build internal strength, fitness and balance. It can relieve acute symptomatology, body aches, pains and illnesses, and it is an excellent way to relieve chronic pain and aid healing of all kinds of health conditions. It is also an enjoyable and rejuvenating therapy for those who feel generally well.

More specifically, Qigong can help heal autonomic nerve disorders, climacteric symptomatology, neurasthenia, chronic gastroenteritis, hypertension, chronic bronchitis, diabetes and coronary heart diseases and so on. By learning and practicing a set of techniques that require concentration, controlled breathing techniques, and specific slow movement exercises, Qigong practitioners feel calmer and more energized.

However, people who suffer from mental disorder or have unstable mental conditions such as hysteria and schizophrenia are not fit to practice Qigong. Other types of physical training would be more suitable for them.

After its foundation, there have evolved a variety of styles or schools of Tai Chi Chuan. These reflect both a growth and development of the form in general, as well as differences of style and emphasis between different teachers. Elements of other martial arts forms have made themselves felt in Tai Chi, and this has changed its character as well.

Most of the different schools or styles of Tai Chi have been given the surnames of their founders. The principal schools of Tai Chi that are in existence today are Chen Style, Hao (or Wu Shi) Style, Hu Lei Style, Sun Style, Wu Style, Yang Style and Zhao Bao Style. Each style may have different forms such as the long Tai Chi form, the Tai Chi sword form, the eight-diagram palm, the spear form and the Tai Chi saber form.

There exists in China a very ancient history of movement systems that are associated with health and philosophy. In some sense one can see all of these as contributing to the climate in which Tai Chi was born.

From the very origins of Taoism in the sixth century BC, sages like Lao Zi wrote in the Tao Te Ching: “Yield and Overcome; Bend and be straight” and “He who stands on tiptoes is not steady; he who strides cannot maintain the pace.” Throughout the entire of his writings, Lao Zi reflects the central philosophical underpinnings of Tai Chi Chuan.

Later, in the period of the Three Kingdoms (220-265 AD), the physician Hua Tuo relied not only on medicine to heal, but also taught the “movements of the five creatures”–tiger, deer, bear, ape and birds–a system he called “five-animal frolic” (wu qin xi). He believed that the body needed to be regularly exercised to help with digestion and circulation and only by doing so could a long and healthy life be achieved. He advocated a system of imitating the movements of these animals to help exercise every joint in the body. His teaching, and its connection with the movements of animals, is probably the earliest pre-cursor of Tai Chi.

Chang Sanfeng, a monk from Wutang Monastery in Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) is regarded as the founder of Tai Chi Boxing, though some scholars doubt his historical existence. Linking some of the older forms of movement with the notion of yin-yang from Taoism and stressing the ‘internal’ aspects of his exercises, he is credited with creating the fundamental ‘Thirteen Postures’ of Tai Chi.

On the opening ceremony of the Eleventh Asian Games in 1990 1,500 Tai Chi Boxing practitioners from China and Japan gave a grand performance of Tai Chi Boxing (tai ji quan), creating a stir worldwide. This slow, graceful Chinese exercise is attracting more and more friends from various countries these days. We would like to introduce Tai Chi Boxing, with its precious heritage of Chinese culture, to those foreign friends who may not know about Tai Chi.

The Chinese characters for Tai Chi Chuan can be translated as the “Supreme Ultimate Force”. The notion of “supreme ultimate” is often associated with the Chinese concept of Yin-Yang, the notion that one can see a dynamic duality (male/female, active/passive, dark/light, forceful/yielding, etc.) in all things. “Force” (or, more literally, “fist”) can be thought of here as the means or way of achieving this Yin-Yang, or “supreme-ultimate” discipline.

Tai Chi, as it is practiced in the West today, can perhaps be best thought of as a moving form of yoga and meditation combined. There are a number of so-called forms (sometimes also called “sets”) which consist of a sequence of movements. Many of these movements are originally derived from the martial arts (and perhaps even more ancestrally than that, from the natural movements of animals and birds) although the way they are performed in Tai Chi is slowly, softly and gracefully, having smooth and even transitions between them.