The Way of Least Resistance

Occasionally folks who come to try out my taijiquan (t'ai chi ch'uan) class will "turn up their noses". "It's too complicated," they say in an accusing manner, as if I've deliberately tried to make them look stupid by giving them an impossible task or required an "anal" level of detail. They want to "flow" or "move their spirit" or "be one with their mind and body" or some other vague new-age concept. They identify taijiquan with such concepts and they expect to be "naturally good at it". Experts even. All without having tried it before. After all, they might have gone to some qi gong (breathing exercise) classes, meditation courses or something similar, where all they had to do was sit or stand, “breathe”, chant mantras and maybe do some basic macro body movements like swing their arms loosely. And that was all "natural". Or maybe they went to a yoga class where their genetic flexibilit...

My Chen Pan-Ling brother and good friend Mark Small sent me a link to the Camp Tai Chi site run by John Crewdson. John's home page has the intriguing heading "7 Ways Tai Chi is Different From Yoga" . I don't disagree with any of John's points, particularly his observation that taiji (tai chi) is a martial art, where yoga is not. But I can't help thinking there is much more to the distinction between these 2 disciplines, particularly since taiji is very rarely practised as a combat art. Rather it is seen as health and well-being discipline not unlike yoga. Despite their common objectives, it is my view that yoga and taijiquan are so different in function that in many respects the question of "how they are different" is misconceived. Arguably the impression that taiji and yoga are similar activities is fostered by the fact that "new age" adherents often lump them together as both "spiritual" and "physical" disc...