What is Tai Chi?
Moving Meditation. An Internal Martial Art. The Supreme Ultimate.
Harmony and Balance between Body Mind and Spirit.
All true statements, yet of limited practical usefulness to the new or novice tai chi player.
So let's try a different approach. Visualize tai chi as a journey. A winding path with many many branches off the main path. Yes, ultimately the path might take you to one of these places - assuming that is where you want to go in the first place. Or, you might choose many other possible destinations on your journey.
Let's assume you are among the 97% of tai chi players today who are interested in the health and wellness benefits of tai chi. You will likely start with a focus on the forms, and learn some tai chi sets. Many will find this is as far as they want to travel on the tai chi path - they are looking for a social expereince or a low impact form of gentle exercise, and not looking for deeper truths or learning. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with having this as your goal.
Others will seek to progress further - to learn additional forms or styles of tai chi. Our western thinking that more is always better, right? causes some to become tai chi form 'collectors' and these players judge their progress by how many forms they can do, how many sets they have memorized, how many styles of tai chi they can perform. They may also use this thinking to both keep score and compare themselves to others.. Or perhaps not - many of these players continue down the path of accumulation, but a good number back off and take a different turn on the path.
Instead of learning more and more forms, they decide to go deeper into a more limited set of forms - to explore the principles on which tai chi is based.
TO BE CONTINUED