YANG STYLE TAI CHI's TEN IMPORTANT POINTS

by Yang Cheng-fu (1883 - 1936)

Sink the chest and pluck up the back. The chest is depressed naturally inward so that the chi can sink to the tan-t'ien [field of elixir]. Don't expand the chest: the chi gets stuck there and the body becomes top-heavy. The heel will be too light and can be uprooted. Pluck up the back and the chi sticks to the back; depress the chest and you can pluck up the back. Then you can discharge force through the spine. You will be a peerless boxer.

Sung [Relax] the waist. The waist is the commander of the whole body. If you can sung the waist, then the two legs will have power and the lower part will be firm and stable. Substantial and insubstantial change, and this is based on the turning of the waist. It is said "the source of the postures lies in the waist. If you cannot get power, seek the defect in the legs and waist."

Differentiate between insubstantial and substantial. This is the first principle in Tai Chi. If the weight of the whole body is resting on the right leg, then the right leg is substantial and the left leg is insubstantial, and vice versa. When you can separate substantial and insubstantial, you can turn lightly without using strength. If you cannot separate, the step is heavy and slow. The stance is not firm and can be easily thrown of balance.

Sink the shoulders and drop the elbows. The shoulders will be completely relaxed and open. If you cannot relax and sink, the two shoulders will be raised up and tense. The chi will follow them up and the whole body cannot get power. "Sink the elbows" means the elbows go down and relax. If the elbows raise, the shoulders are not able to sink and you cannot discharge people far. The discharge will then be close to the broken force of the external schools.

Use the mind instead of force. The Tai Chi Classics say, "all of this means use Yi [mind-intent] and not li." In practicing Tai Chi the whole body relaxes. Don't let one ounce of force remain in the blood vessels, bones, and ligaments to tie yourself up. Then you can be agile and able to change. You will be able to turn freely and easily. Doubting this, how can you increase your power?

The body has meridians like the ground has ditches and trenches. If not obstructed the water can flow. If the meridian is not closed, the chi goes through. If the whole body has hard force and it fills up the meridians, the chi and the blood stop and the turning is not smooth and agile. Just pull one hair and the whole body is off-balance. If you use Yi, and not li, then the Yi goes to a place in the body and the chi follows it. The chi and the blood circulate. If you do this every day and never stop, after a long time you will have nei chin [real internal strength]. The Tai Chi Classics say, "when you are extremely soft, you become extremely hard and strong." Someone who has extremely good Tai Chi kung fu has arms like iron wrapped with cotton and the weight is very heavy. As for the external schools, when they use li, they reveal li. When they don't use li, they are too light and floating. The li of the external schools is easily led and moved, and not too be esteemed.

Coordinate the upper and lower parts of the body. The Tai Chi Classics say "the motion should be rooted in the feet, released through the legs, controlled by the waist and manifested through the fingers." Everything acts simultaneously. When the hand, waist and foot move together, the eyes follow. If one part doesn't follow, the whole body is disordered.

Harmonize the internal and external. In the practice of Tai Chi the main thing is the spirit. Therefore it is said "the spirit is the commander and the body is subordinate." If you can raise the spirit, then the movements will naturally be agile. The postures are not beyond insubstantial and substantial, opening and closing. That which is called open means not only the hands and feet are open, but the mind is also open. That which is called closed means not only the hands and feet are closed, but the mind is also closed. When you can make the inside and outside become one, then it becomes complete.

Move with continuity. As to the external schools, their chin is the Latter Heaven brute chin. Therefore it is finite. There are connections and breaks. During the breaks the old force is exhausted and the new force has not yet been born. At these moments it is very easy for others to take advantage. Tai Chi uses Yi and not li. From beginning to end it is continuous and not broken. It is circular and again resumes. It revolves and has no limits. The original Classics say it is "like a great river rolling on unceasingly." and that the circulation of the chin is "drawing silk from a cocoon " They all talk about being connected together.

Move with tranquility [Seek stillness in movement]. The external schools assume jumping about is good and they use all their energy. That is why after practice everyone pants. Tai Chi uses stillness to control movement. Although one moves, there is also stillness. Therefore in practicing the form, slower is better. If it is slow, the inhalation and exhalation are long and deep and the chi sinks to the tan-t'ien. Naturally there is no injurious practice such as engorgement of the blood vessels. The learner should be careful to comprehend it. Then you will get the real meaning.

April 13, 2004
They Call It Meditation in Motion, but Does Tai Chi Heal Ills?
By MARK DERR

MIAMI BEACH, April 12 — On a languid March evening, Jeff Morris, a lean, muscular man with a calm smile and shaved head, led a class of three men and two women with slow, fluid, continuous movements through the formalized postures of tai chi, the centuries-old Chinese Taoist martial art.

For 75 minutes, the participants focused their attention on controlling the positions of their arms, legs, torsos and spines, guiding them in concert repeatedly through their poses with varying degrees of gracefulness.

Told in 1986 that he had full-blown AIDS and just a year to live, Mr. Morris turned to tai chi, its companion discipline qigong and later a cocktail of antiviral drugs. Now, H.I.V. is virtually undetectable in his blood, and he teaches tai chi at various locations in Miami-Dade County. 

Mr. Morris is not alone in attributing healing value to what is often called meditation in motion. But as with acupuncture and other non-Western healing arts, determining just how well this ancient discipline works challenges researchers.

Tai chi first gained adherents in the United States in the late 1960's. The practice is said to enhance balance, flexibility, gait, posture, digestion, concentration, memory and overall physical and mental well-being. Its proponents say it is especially beneficial for the elderly and for people with chronic medical disorders.

Tai chi's methods and purpose stand in stark contrast to more active aerobic activities, like running, cycling, swimming or even brisk walking. Eastern exercises like tai chi emphasize internal strength and energy; Western activities traditionally focus on building muscles, said Dr. Chenchen Wang, who studies the medical use of tai chi at the Tufts-New England Medical Center. 

Over the past five decades, dozens of clinical studies have suggested that tai chi may benefit people with high blood pressure, heart problems, injuries, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, anxiety and depression, among other ailments.

But despite the generally favorable findings on the physiological and psychological value of tai chi, Dr. Wang said, the studies were neither conclusive nor definitive.

Dr. Wang based her conclusions on an analysis of 47 medical studies conducted in China and the United States over the past five decades. 

She and two collaborators, Dr. Joseph Lau of the Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston and Dr. Jean-Paul Collet of Jewish General Hospital at McGill University in Montreal, published their findings in the March 8 issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine. 

"The promise of tai chi is great," Dr. Wang said, "but given the current state of knowledge, I wouldn't recommend to my patients to do tai chi over other exercise." 

She added that more and better studies were needed to determine which of the many forms of tai chi were best for which problems, how long a patient needed to follow a program to show improvement and whether tai chi was more effective than other forms of exercise.

Dr. Wang is now preparing to publish the findings of a comprehensive study of the effectiveness of tai chi in helping people with rheumatoid arthritis improve their balance and prevent falls. 

It is axiomatic that exercise is essential to good health.

Although recommendations vary somewhat among organizations and for different age groups, the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion recommends for adults a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate-intensity activity — brisk walking, for example — at least five days a week, or a minimum of 20 minutes of vigorous exercise, like running, three or more days a week.

Dr. Deborah Rohm Young, a kinesiologist at the University of Maryland, said the question for the 80 to 85 percent of Americans who do not meet that threshold, for reasons including chronic illness, is which exercise is best — well-known aerobic activities like walking, jogging or cycling or Eastern exercises like yoga, tai chi or even the physically passive qigong, which focuses on meditation and breathing. 

In a clinical trial in the late 1990's, Dr. Young and her colleagues found that moderate-intensity aerobic exercise was slightly better than low-intensity tai chi at lowering blood pressure and noticeably better at improving fitness in a group of 62 sedentary elderly people over 12 weeks. 

But the style of tai chi they taught, known as yang — popular because of its slow, continuous movements — performed well enough to lead the researchers to conclude that it might help sedentary older adults who could not engage in more rigorous exercise, or did not want to.

Studies of tai chi are hard to conduct, because tai chi masters differ in their instruction methods and often do not want to change what they do to conform with other teachers, said Dr. Jorge Juncos, a neurologist at the Emory University School of Medicine.

Dr. Juncos is conducting a study comparing the relative effectiveness of tai chi, qigong and traditional huff-and-puff aerobics in helping patients with Parkinson's disease improve their gait, balance, posture and conditioning.

Exercise may benefit Parkinson's patients primarily through caloric expenditure; in that case, the form matters less than the intensity, Dr. Juncos said. Alternatively, it may be the emphasis in tai chi on integrating the mind and the body that is beneficial. 

To find out, Dr. Juncos made sure that in his study, the tai chi practitioners worked as hard physically as those doing aerobics. Because tai chi emphasizes the meeting of mind and body, some experts believe it is potentially more effective for people with neurological disorders than aerobic activities like walking or pedaling a stationary bicycle.

While performing those activities, people often listen to music, read or talk, Dr. Juncos noted. 

Tai chi is thought to engage the brain through concentrated breathing. The theory is that the breathing begins to shift primary neurological functions to other brain regions, correcting to some degree the poor balance or gait that are hallmarks of Parkinson's. 

Tai chi may also help alleviate the thinking and memory problems that affect some people with Parkinson's, Dr. Juncos said.

Many studies do not continue long enough to measure the full effects of tai chi, which takes time and practice to master, said Dr. Fuzhong Li, a research scientist at the Oregon Research Institute.

In a study that has not yet been published, Dr. Li found that falls were significantly reduced in a group of elderly people during six months of training in tai chi.

A follow-up survey showed that six months after the end of the training, there were still fewer falls among the people who were trained in tai chi than among those who were not.

Seventy percent of the tai chi group had continued practicing after the training period.

Because it can take months to learn proper tai chi movement, Dr. Li has tried to make the exercise easier for people, so they do not quit prematurely.

He developed a simplified version of yang-style tai chi that emphasizes weight shifts, hand-eye coordination, trunk rotation and slow, continuous, even flow through eight forms, or postures.

"We're not interested in the aerobic aspect of exercise," Dr. Li said. "We are interested in physical functioning and balance." 

What makes tai chi valuable, he added, is that the physical movements are combined with meditation, that it is low-impact and can be performed anywhere, and that people, especially those who are older, enjoy the social interactions of the classes. 

At the Advanced Sports Medicine Wellness Institute in Miami Beach, without breaking a sweat or driving his pulse rate far above normal, a physically fit visitor with Parkinson's disease found Mr. Morris's 75-minute session to be intense and hard. 

But it seemed no better mentally, and was certainly less aerobic, than swimming laps.