Just Tai Chi It

What is Tai Chi? How can you incorporate and experience the benefits of Tai Chi practice? And Tai Chi as a verb.
 
    (Taiji) Tai Chi or Taiji Chuan is commonly understood as a noun describing the internal art and practice toward stability and wellness. To Tai Chi a thing is to artfully and elusively accomplish in a soft, aligned and subtle exhibition with obvious and overt results. Tai Chi is essentially the exercise of Tao. To Tai Chi a thing is to incorporate Tao in what you broadly and specifically.
 
Tai Chi Fact#1 You are in an existential fight, right now. You may be threatened by other humans and beasts at any time if you are not right now, but you are certainly fighting, right now. You are in a fight with plaque and tartar in your mouth and in your circulatory system. You are in a fight with bacteria, fungi, viruses and all sorts of little nasties. You are required to fight these invisible creatures, in a balanced manner, or you will cease.
 
Tai Chi Fact#2 You are responsible for you. Whether you have health insurance or a diet or exercise program you are responsible for you. Whether you swallow prescription pills three at a time to take care of obtuse problems or you focus on herbs to maintain a state without obtuse problems you are responsible for you. The juvenile and materialistic minds of the world would rather do anything than be responsible for themselves and their surroundings.  
 
    To Tai Chi it is to Tao it in our modest human form. Now we cannot really be Tao though we are of Tao, the best we can do in our human form is to Tai Chi, to align with Taoness as much as possible in our being. I will do my best to elaborate the theory and share practice for enhanced understanding and minimized confusion for neophytes to experience Tai Chi, as well as add to and refine ideas for practitioners.  
 
First Warning of Tai Chi: you won’t like the exhibition of loudness and the basic. Your tastes will change.
Second Warning: Those who exhibit loudness and the basic won’t like you. Your flavor will change.  
 
    The first warning of Tai Chi practice is a commonly understood idea which essentially informs the new practitioner that with increased sensitivity comes increased disdain for the loud and gross. With refinement and development the base becomes unpalatable and unwanted.

   The second warning is something that is a not so commonly understood experience of longtime practitioners who have experienced animosity for their practice. It is the result of human behavior and not the Tai Chi practice itself, but when you commit to self-development you will experience new competition and confrontation for doing so, and most assuredly this animosity comes from the base and gross. This is just another reason people often practice Tai Chi in obscurity.
 
“When one part moves, every part moves, and when one part is still, every part is still.” Taiji Classics
 
    The above is super important. And though you might get it you likely have not got it. This requires practice. We must understand the parts and then almost make it so there are no parts, there is just being. And there are many paradoxes in Tai Chi practice and instruction. We need to know the parts, but also know the parts move as one and pursue that, only by knowing parts can we unite.   
 
Primary notion: Practice The 70% Rule. One of the best ways to maintain and gain is to not apply yourself at more than 70% extension and exertion.
 
Secondary Notion: There are four forms of being. One of the best ways to develop softness and longevity is to balance the four forms of being. There is lying, sitting, standing and walking. Find the appropriate balance of these for you, optimally using the 70% rule.
   
    I have long wondered why Tai Chi is less popular than Yoga. A fellow Tai Chi practitioner noted the answer was simple; Tai Chi does not have Yoga pants. But seriously most of Tai Chi practice is actually solo practice, Tai Chi requires dedication and discipline and all of this reflects the fact that Tai Chi requires responsibility. Tai Chi also can develop responsibility but it certainly requires a sense of responsibility. 

    One of the first lessons in Tai Chi practice is that first you imagine the Chi and its movement and then you cannot unimagine it.

    Another primary lesson to understand along with this is that it is ultra important to practice, and to exist, in the correct orientation and velocity otherwise one might practice for years and only go in circles or worse end up in a place more distant from your intended destination than your origination. So add the intention to refine as you go, in life and in Tai Chi.

    The sensitivity to chi and its sensations begins with imagination. However this no woo, this is true for everything from material invention to psychic investigation. You must imagine it first then you cannot unimagine it.

    Tai Chi practice is very real and assists us in understanding of our very real potentials and limitations. One level of practice is to practice the form or postures in your mind after memorized physically. The power of the mind and by that a tonified nervous system can empower by magnitudes everything one does. And the power of the mind can hinder too, of course.

    The correct posture, the most efficient posture, leads to the most efficient results. Tai Chi is all about posture refinement of mind and body. Tai Chi is a martial art. It is also a living art and assists all of us to exist at a more balanced manner and at a higher level. Tai chi is a martial art and art of living and being. It is also a meditative art, in part by practicing worst case scenarios like fighting, like situations you have to be responsible for yourself, and preparing for it as much as possible.

     Another primary lesson of Tai Chi and in life is that no matter how peaceful you are there are always potential overt confrontations and always continuous subtle attacks we are in fact always involved in many fights, existential fights requiring balance and higher function.    

    The best way to understand Tai Chi practice is to comprehend it is the most popular martial art in the world, but not for fighting other humans, it is mainly for fighting gravity and age. Tai Chi is the most refined manner to enhance the most circulation in the most relaxed manner thus it is the Grand Ultimate Martial Art enabling a winning stance in the biological fight. To Tai Chi it is to engage in the most relaxed manner with the most overtly effective results.

    Tai Chi is utilized not necessarily to learn how to punch, though that is in the teachings, but it is mainly utilized to be in shape, to be prepared for, anything up to and including overt fighting. And more so Tai Chi is utilized for its generative and restorative properties and lessons. And perhaps most broadly Tai Chi is used for its integration of relaxation leading to balance and with balance betterment. And just as there are many principles and practices to learn in the internal arts and Tai Chi perhaps some of the simplest are the most rewarding throughout the progress, like relaxation and softness.

    One of the best lessons my Tai Chi teacher, Jim C, taught me is “In flexibility there is the potential for rigidity. In rigidity there is no potential for flexibility.” Tai Chi and the practices towards relaxation and softness develop flexibility in body and mind and thus capability.  

    It is better to respond than to re-act, it is better to rethink than to respond and it is better to relax than to rethink and it is better to release that to rethink.

    Imagine responsibility. Some of the most palatable qualities of practice are limberness, responsiveness, holistic moving, yielding and sturdiness. The following instruction is perhaps the simplest and most effective Tai Chi practices to begin to embody Tai Chi.