What’s the difference between “internal” arts like taiji (tai-chi), and all the other sports and body disciplines out there? What is there to an exercise that most people associate with old people and a mind-numbing slow tempo? I’ll explain to you why taiji is so fantastic for your health by talking about its down-to-earth physical effects in your body, while staying away from explanations that stray into the metaphysical.
While all exercise can be good for you, different ones train different things. Some can be used to push yourself to get stronger, and some don’t require much physical strain. For example, football and capoeira can both make you healthy, but also break you! Golf or darts will never take your body to the next level, but still, train coordination.
So how is taiji different from all the other physical regimens out there?, what does it train? Why not just stick to “real” martial-arts, or just run for exercise?
Why is taiji so “good for your health.” ???
- Push Hands is a partnered exercise that is a crucial part of taiji (tai chi). Pictured here are Master Chen Xiaoxing and Tony Wong(left) who teaches in the Bay Area.
Taiji has historically been a martial art. That is, people actually used it to fight. So that tells you there was a lot more to the whole art than just moving real slow. Taiji is actually a bunch of martial applications, plus a set of rules for how to move your body in the most efficient manner.
In this article when I talk about the taiji difference, I mean the style of movement, not the martial arts aspect. Its the style of movement that makes it so good for you. By the way, there are other arts besides taiji that use these rules of movement, they are called “internal arts.”
All physical movements require some amount of muscular strength, and all sports will help tone and/or develop muscles, as well as other tissue. It depends on the nature of the sport. All these things develop their own characteristic set of tissue. Also, different sports and body disciplines depend on different amounts of physical strength. Weight-lifting in particular emphasizes muscular strength, while in something like baseball your muscular strength only matters indirectly.
What are some problems with muscular size and strength as the main focus in exercise?
-
- Chen Ziqiang with spear
Building and maintaining muscles requires expending a lot of qi/energy, and consuming large quantities of food, especially protein.
- Exercise must be vigorous to increase muscle bulk and power. Also, there is a tendency to lose flexibility as you gain muscle mass.
- As you age, muscle tissue isn’t rebuilt as efficiently, but still requires all the nutrients to nourish and maintain itself. Also as you age, muscles will begin to decline in strength and size.
You can have a strong natural constitution, eat the right foods, and train everyday, but at some point muscular development reaches a peak.
Connective tissue is different than muscles, but still powers!
In taiji you learn how to set up and maintain a particular relationship in your body, especially between your midsection and the extremities. You’re only using as much muscular energy as is required to maintain that relationship and move and manipulate things. The focus is on a whole body cohesiveness powering movement, rather than specific muscles and their strength.
Certain muscles do get real strong through practice because of the constraints of moving correctly.
- Chen Xiang’s internal power wows Stanford scientists in 2007
Aside from muscles, what you also have are certain connective tissue such as tendons which join muscles to bones, ligaments attaching bones to other bones, fasciae which wrap around muscles to hold them in place, and similar tissue around the kidneys, heart, testes, liver, and the lymph nodes. Especially the lungs, vocal cords, and ligaments between vertebrae are composed of very elastic connective tissue.
As it turns out, connective tissue is extremely strong and pliable, and can be trained to be more so.
Connective tissue require very little vascularization to be maintained. These tissue are not affected by age. Developed and strong tendons can maintain that strength until your last days.
Also, tendons have a rubbery quality which allows them to store power when twisted. And, there doesn’t seem to be a limit to the amount of power that they can be trained to store! In 2007 Stanford sports researchers took Taiji Master Chen Xiang into the lab and hooked him up to sensors and asked him to demonstrate power release. The scientists were floored at what the instruments showed! “The explosive power of the strikes was stunning – 400 pounds of force generated by Chen’s body accelerating from 0 mph to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds – faster than any Lamborghini out on the street.” This level of power was a first for the lab.
By maintaining their springiness, flexible tendons prevent the stiffness that’s associated with old age.
- My teacher while I lived in S.F., Master Zhang Xue Xin, loves to demonstrate the martial application of the movements in the form we learned. In this picture Master Zhang is in his mid 70′s.
In taiji, the tendons are trained as a result of learning correct structure, then learning to move while maintaining correct structure. When you develop your coordination, your muscles don’t have to work as hard in movement, and so stay mostly relaxed.
When the muscles are relaxed, the connective tissue is able to transport electrical impulses much more efficiently. In taiji, the traditional saying is: only when you relax can you correctly transmit the qi. A lot of training goes into relaxing the muscles, and engaging the tendons and ligaments to hold your structure and power movement.
Tendons and ligaments directing the bones are much more efficient at load-bearing than muscles.
And although practical experience revealed this to martial artists long ago, it is being re-verified through modern research.
Learning to relax and transmit the qi isn’t as simple as it sounds. Being ‘relaxed,’ while at the same time not being too limp is a milestone for any aspiring taiji or qigong practitioner. In fact, this skill, combined with patience and consistency is all you need to do wonders for you body in the form of Zhan Zhuang, a.k.a. “standing practice.”
Over the last 40 years, a lot of research has been done in China and abroad to determine the pathways of qi, the acupuncture meridians, and their connection to qigong type exercises. What they’ve found is that fascia and connective tissue link and connect the organism even down to the microscopic level, each cell with the rest. And, it can function as a vast electrical communication system spanning the entire body!
The connective tissue has a crystalline lattice structure that is compressed during movements. These movements generate bioelectrical signals. Many suspect that the acupuncture meridians are closely tied to this phenomenon in the fascia.
While all physical activity will strengthen tendons as well as muscles, what sets arts like taiji apart from other physical exercises is that taiji teaches you to use the minimum required muscular involvement. You spend a lot of time learning how to do all sorts of movements without unnecessarily involving a lot of muscle. So the muscles learn to be relaxed even in extreme physical movements.
When the muscles are mostly relaxed, the fascia is able to transport the qi/electrical impulses much more efficiently. The tendons learn how to do the work and get stronger and stronger. This allows the “inner strength” gains associated with taiji and qigong. The traditional saying is that you become like “steel wrapped in cotton.” This is talking about the apparent paradox that even though the muscles of the taiji practitioner feel relaxed and calm, the power he/she transmits is very strong.
This inner strength isn’t just a physical power, but that aspect of it is the easiest thing for other people to see and experience. That’s why you always see “demonstrations” of taiji where 10 people are pushing on some master and he just can’t be pushed down. Or another favorite is when the 180+ pound guy gets thrown around like a rag doll by an old guy who looks about 100 pounds. It really has to be seen/felt to be believed, but the article on Chen Xiang helps you get an idea too.
Aside from displays of power, this form of training and movement is also great for promoting health. Correct taiji movement is a reflection of how the body is built to move, as a whole unit rather than disparate parts. Conceptually speaking, working out undue muscular involvement in your physical movements and habits lets your body naturally integrate its various parts into a more cohesive whole. What is clearly observable is that through good practice, one will get stronger legs and mid-section which greatly improve balance and structure. Other things effected: joints, circulation, your bones (because of proper load-bearing), and more.
