T’ai Chi is a traditional Chinese conditioning exercise that seeks to enhance balance, body awareness, and overall well being through the practice of therapeutic movements.

T’ai Chi combines deep diaphragmatic breathing and relaxation with slow gentle movements.  These gentle movements involve isometric and isotonic positioning of the hands, legs, waist and spine.  These movements should be performed effortlessly with one movement following into the next.  Mental concentration is required to achieve harmony between body and mind. 

To newcomers, T’ai Chi exercise appears to look like a graceful dance.  Some practitioners have described this exercise as a moving meditation.

T’ai Chi exercise is becoming an excellent form of exercise for the mature adults.  its growing popularity is due to recent research documenting its ability to improve balance, strength, mood and even cardiovascular health.  Due to its positive benefits, T’ai Chi classes have been springing up everywhere from health clubs to hospital centers.

This form of excercise can be practiced at any age, any time and practically anywhere.

Although we Westerners translate the Chinese spelling of words T’ai Chi as meaning

Ultimate Breath, T’ai Chi literally means, “Moving Life Force”.

A Chinese Martial Artist, named Chang San Feng, is credited for developing this form of

martial arts exercise over 300 years ago.  He originally combined the movements of the snake and white crane to develop a fighting system, pretty much as Boddhidharma, a Chinese monk had done before him hundreds of years ago.

T’ai Chi consists of relaxed, low impact movements of the arms and constant shifting of

the legs to mimic animal movements.  These flowing movements are linked together into a choreographed pattern called a “form”.  Through the practice of these forms, T’ai Chi is designed to stimulate and balance the “Chi,” life force in the body, by improving muscle control and breathing.  Although originally designed as a form of self-defense for monks, T’ai Chi has evolved into an art that exercises the body, and the mind to promote health, wellness, and mental relaxation.

The T’ai chi exercises are based on the concept of Yin and Yang, a Taoist principle that good health results from the balance of positive and negative Chi, “life force”.  An imbalance or obstruction of these forces results in health problems.

T’ai Chi exercise seeks to maintain a balanced, un-blocked energy flow through proper breathing and movement exercises.  In practicing T’ai Chi, emphasis should be placed on: Keeping the body extended, and relaxed, keeping the mind alert but calm, and keeping body movements slow and well-coordinated.

As people age, certain postures and movements become more limited.  T’ai Chi seeks to improve range of motion in deficient areas by improving flexibility and strengthening muscles involved with good posture and balance.  T’ai Chi practitioners are thought to safely walk with narrow stance and to become aware of their physical limitations through the practice of the form.  This practice session takes the practitioner to the edge between balance and falling until a firm root involved with balance is developed. 

The flowing movements involve the gradual shifting of body weight from one foot to the other while turning the body from side to side to develop a stable stance and improve flexibility.  Throughout the exercise, emphasys is placed on deep breathing and body awareness to improve cardiovascular fitness and hand-eye coordination.

Yang-Hsu Taijiquan

Although there is no substance to claiming that Yang-Hsu Taijiquan is a  traditional Shaolin style of Tai Chi; Shaolin Tai Ji Quan (originating from Chen village), came into being by blending a number of existing styles together.  Tai Tzu Chang Quan, Shaolin Lohan (Luohan) Quan, and Tai Ji Quan, all chronicle a very early history of Chinese martial arts that are associated with health and mental well-being besides physical fitness and self defense.  When the Emperor Chao Kuang-Yin visited Shaolin temple during the early Sung Dynasty and gifted them with a series of books that contained his own Chang Quan and Hong Quan forms, Shaolin already had centuries of chi gung and martial arts cultivation  through its creation of the Lohan style. Lohan (Luohan) is a Shaolin martial art that incorporates the legendary "Muscle-Tendon Changing" and "Bone Marrow Washing" Chi Gung exercises utilizing them into various self defense movements that were based on the martial postures seen in the 18 Lohan “Arhat” statues.

While Chen Tai Chi has used the names of the postures from the Qi book, if one looks closely at a set of three earlier Shaolin forms, called the Shaolin Tai Tzu Chang Quan forms (yi, er, and san lu), one can see some surprising similarities between the movements of the Chen Lao Jia form and those seen in Shaolin Chang Quan, Shaolin Lohan forms, Hong Quan forms as well as in various chi gung forms. 

Although the names of the Chen postures may come from the form in Qi's book, evidently the actual movements appear to have origins in the Shaolin Tai Tzu Chang Quan forms.

The Yang style of Tai Chi Chuan is the most popular and well known of the styles in existence today. It originated with Yang Lu Chan in the early 19th century but was popularized by Yang Chen-fu towards the start of the 20th century.

Like the Chen style of Tai Chi, Yang is characterized by stable steady stances and balances the hard and the soft, the fast and the slow. It employs fewer low stances and maintains a flow in graceful movements that is readily apparent when practiced slowly.
Like all Tai Chi Chuan styles, the Yang system integrates martial arts, physical health and spiritual development, laying special emphasis on the cultivation of internal energy or "Chi".  The slow graceful movements develop balance, co-ordination and a mind that is calm, yet alert.  Many of the ideas and movements seen in Yang style, but not obvious in Chen style, can be found in Hong Quan forms, especially the Xiao Hong Quan form. The concept and movements of Tai Ji Quan’s Push Hands are also found in the Step Forward Push Palms postures in Xiao Hong Quan, along with the Fair Lady Works at Shuttles movement.

Hsu Hung-Chi or Xu Hongji was a Taiwanese martial artist who specialized in the internal arts of xingyiquan, baguazhan and taijiquan.  Hsu Hung-Chi (1934 – 1984) was born in Taipei, Taiwan.  He began studying Shaolin Kung Fu at a very early age.  After studying the external styles of Shaolin for many years, he discovered the exceptional and valuable applications of the internal martial arts and began training with Hung I-Hsiang a master of all three of the core Chinese internal arts, Xingyiquan, Baguazhang and Taijiquan. 

Several years later Hsu opened his own school and used a modified version of Tang Shou Tao (Chinese Hand Way) developed by his teacher Hung I-Hsiang.  Tang Shou Tao is not a separate style of martial art, but rather a practical, step-by-step, methodical approach to learning internal martial arts and developing highly refined levels of skill.  In the 1960’s he began teaching in Taiwan.  It was at this time that he met Shi Su Jian (Ito Kobayashi) one of the first Shaolin monks to escape to Europe from Chinese oppression under the Mao regime in the early sixties.  After Shi Su Jian’s escape to Europe he created and developed a style of Taiji using components and useful applications of various sets of Shaolin forms such as Tai Tzu Chang Quan, Shaolin Lohan (Luohan) Quan and blending them with Xingyiquan, Yang style Taijiquan and Tang Shou Tao, calling it Yang-Hsu Taijiquan.