Tai Chi (#248, Topic I)

Tai Chi Quan, frequently truncated to Tai Chi, is a Chinese invention several centuries ago. To younger people in their teens and 20s, TC is fast moving and atheletic; when equipped with swords, now known as Tai Chi Jian , it is beautiful to watch, though it could be used in a duel no less fatal than gun duels in the west (witness the award-winning movie: Crouching dragon and taming tigers). When adapted for the mid-aged or older, TC movements may be slowed down as to be graceful and leisurely. I was first exposed to TC in 1991, when I was a consultant for the Asian Development Bank stationed in Shanghai -- I walked to the park to learn TC every morning at 6. Unfortunately, the teacher, with a group of students of different ages, made no concession to oldsters like myself (I was 63 then). So, I could not keep up with the class and, as a consequence, did not learn much; if anything, my back pain, to which TC is said to offer an effective remedy, became more pronounced. My next exposure to TC was in 1998, when a TC Institute held an open house in Rockville MD; out of curiosity, I went. There, I asked Master Tang, the Institute's director, about my back pain. His answer: "you did not do TC correctly." In September of that year (the beginning of a new academic year), I enrolled in a class which Master Tang personally taught. (The Institute, which Master Tang first set up about a decade ago or so with 15 students, had mushroomed into a dozen branches teaching thousands of adults how to do TC at no charge.) Master Tang's teaching method was/is undoubted well adapted to senior citizens, since I was able to follow (despite my gradual loss in memory). Indeed, some time ago, I no longer felt any back pain (caused by a major car accident). A few days ago, I was at a cardiologist's office for my initial visit. Upon knowing my age (78), he said: "You don't look that old." Indeed, I feel quite good and fit. A real good benefit from TC, particularly for older people, is to improve one's balance. (This has been documented through many academic studies.) An incident this morning prompted me to do this entry. In taking my daily walk, I invariably take the fire stairs, which, needless to say, are built with cement. This morning, for reasons unclear, on my way down, I somehow almost missed a step -- had I missed, I would have tumbled down about a dozen steps and be hurt, perhaps rather badly. However, doing TC for 8 or so years, I was able to be more aware of a basic but critical TC movement known as single weight. Single weight, viewed positively, means that one's body weight must always be carried by one foot (except at the very beginning or at the very end, when one is readying to begin or proceeding to end); one's body weight shifts from one foot to the other as movement progresses. Viewed defensively, single weight means that, before one shifts weight from one foot to the other, make sure that the footing one is to land is solid/level -- losing balance, viewed this way, is the result of landing on a footing one thinks is solid/level but is in fact not so. Landing on a footing that is not solid nor level leads one to lose balance; losing balance results in a fall. This morning, just before I was shifting my weight from my right foot to my left foot, I suddenly realized that the footing on which my left foot was to land was further removed from me than I visualized -- had I shifted my weight then and there, I would be deceived by my illusion and would lose my balance, resulting in tumbling down. This realization took barely a fraction of a second -- a nanosecond would be an exaggeration; a millisecond would be about right -- with this realization, I withheld shifting my weight to my left foot (that is, freezing my weight on my right foot in suspense) while instintively grasping the railbar next to the stairs. With my forwaard momentum arrested, nothing happened. I was able to walk down as if nothing happened. I took the walk and, in time, do this entry.