Are You Learning Tai Chi or Just Copying the Movements?
Watch a Tai Chi class and, particularly as a beginner, much of your attention will probably be on one thing:
Trying to copy the teacher.
Where does my hand go? Which foot moves next? Am I facing the right direction?
That’s completely normal. We all need to learn the movements.
But there is an important difference between copying the outward shape of a Tai Chi movement and understanding what makes that movement Tai Chi.
The movement is only part of the lesson
Imagine learning a simple Tai Chi movement involving a shift of weight from one leg to the other.
You could watch the teacher, move your body from side to side and reproduce something that looks reasonably similar.
But what is happening underneath?
Where is your weight?
Are you genuinely transferring it from one leg to the other, or simply leaning your upper body?
Are your knees and hips working comfortably?
Are you holding unnecessary tension?
Are you balanced throughout the movement?
Can you distinguish between the weighted and unweighted side?
Is your upper body moving independently, or is the body beginning to move as a connected whole?
Where is your attention?
What is your intention?
Suddenly, a movement that looked very simple contains a great deal to explore.
That is one of the things that makes Tai Chi so interesting.
Don’t just learn the movements. Learn what makes them Tai Chi.
At Shang Tai Chi, we want students to understand both what they are doing and why they are doing it.
That means learning principles such as:
structure, balance, weight transfer, relaxation, coordination, breathing, awareness and intention.
As your understanding develops, traditional Tai Chi concepts such as Song, substantial and insubstantial, rooting, Dan Tian, opening and closing, and whole-body connection can add further layers to the practice.
The movements give us a way to explore these principles.
And understanding the principles can change how we practise the movements.
Why practise slowly?
This also helps explain why Tai Chi is so often practised slowly.
Slow movement isn’t valuable simply because slow movement is relaxing.
Moving slowly gives us an opportunity to notice.
We can notice when balance changes.
We can feel when unnecessary tension appears.
We can observe how our weight moves.
We can pay attention to how one part of the body connects with another.
We can become aware of the difference between simply completing a movement and moving with intention.
Speed can hide mistakes.
Slow practice can expose them.
Then something interesting happens
Once you understand what a movement is teaching, you don’t necessarily need to perform an entire form every time you want to practise that particular principle.
Consider weight transfer again.
You might spend a few minutes simply standing comfortably and shifting your weight from one side to the other.
The movement itself is tiny.
But your attention might be on:
Where is my weight?
When does one leg become substantial and the other insubstantial?
Can I move without leaning?
Can I remain relaxed without collapsing?
Can I maintain my structure throughout the shift?
Now you’re not mindlessly moving from side to side.
You’re deliberately practising something you learned through Tai Chi.
This is the idea behind Micro Tai Chi
We developed Micro Tai Chi™ around this principle.
Micro Tai Chi isn’t a replacement for learning Tai Chi properly.
In fact, it depends upon it.
First, you learn a genuine Tai Chi principle and understand what you’re trying to develop.
Then you find short opportunities to reinforce it.
That might be two minutes while waiting for the kettle.
A few minutes standing outside.
A seated practice at your desk.
A quiet breathing and relaxation practice before bed.
Or simply noticing how you transfer your weight while standing.
The practice is small.
The principle isn’t.
Tai Chi can begin to leave the classroom
This is where Tai Chi becomes particularly interesting to us.
If Tai Chi exists only during a one-hour class each week, there are another 167 hours in the week when we’re not practising it.
But once we understand its principles, we can begin recognising opportunities to explore them elsewhere.
Standing becomes an opportunity to notice structure.
Walking becomes an opportunity to notice weight transfer.
Waiting becomes an opportunity to release unnecessary tension.
Movement becomes an opportunity to notice balance and coordination.
A stressful moment might remind us to notice our breathing and tension.
None of those things replaces practising Tai Chi forms.
They reinforce what the forms are teaching us.
Forms still matter
There is an important distinction here.
Understanding principles doesn’t mean:
“Forms don’t matter, so just make up some slow movements.”
Traditional forms bring principles together in increasingly complex combinations. They develop transitions, coordination, continuity, direction, intention and relationships between movements that isolated practice cannot completely reproduce.
We need both.
Focused practice allows us to examine the pieces.
Forms teach us to connect them.
Over time, those pieces become increasingly integrated.
That’s why the Shang development pathway moves through:
Foundation → Connection → Integration → Expression.
We learn the principles, connect them, maintain them through increasingly complete movement and eventually explore how they can be expressed and applied.
Learn. Practise. Live.
This leads to one of the central ideas behind Shang Tai Chi:
Learn the art. Practise its principles. Live them.
Learn the movement and understand the principles within it.
Practise through forms, Qigong, focused exercises and Micro Tai Chi.
Live by becoming increasingly aware of those principles in the way you move through everyday life.
You don’t stop learning forms.
You begin understanding what the forms have been trying to teach you.
And that leads to a simple idea that captures much of the Shang approach:
The form teaches the principles.
The principles make the practice portable.
Want to experience the difference?
The free 7-Day Shang Tai Chi Introduction starts with fundamental principles rather than asking you to memorise a long sequence of movements.
You’ll learn a principle, practise it, reinforce it through a short Micro Tai Chi exercise and begin understanding how the pieces eventually connect.
Start Tai Chi in 7 Days — free.