Tai Chi: A practical approach to the ancient Chinese movement for health and well-being. Angus Clark
Kick with Heel
Brush Left Knee and Punch Downward
Fair Lady Weaves the Shuttle (1)
Fair Lady Weaves the Shuttle (2, 3, and 4)
Step Forward to the Seven Stars and Step Back to Ride Tiger
Withdraw and Push and Crossing Hands
Further Reading/Useful Addresses
TAI CHI IS a system of exercises or movements to promote health and longevity, and a comprehensive system of self-defense. Its roots are in China, where it evolved over many hundreds of years as a martial art and as a system of self-development. In the past, many of its techniques were preserved for generations as clan or family secrets, but very gradually, knowledge of the art spread throughout China. Now at the start and end of every day in villages, towns, and cities all over Chinese Asia, people can be seen practicing the slow, graceful movements of tai chi in courtyards, squares, and parks.
At dawn and as the sun sets in the evening, Chinese people go out to practice tai chi.
Tai chi was carried to the West in the 20th century, both by Westerners who had studied under Chinese masters, and by Chinese teachers who moved to the West. Nowadays, tai chi is well known in all Western countries, and a wide spectrum of people all over the world practice it regularly. In the West health organizations, schools, colleges, and even businesses now incorporate tai chi into their curricula and their training programs.
A cascade of cosmic energy sweeps through the body in the Squatting Single Whip posture.
Tai chi is a multidimensional art form that has the capacity to touch several important levels in the life of anyone who embarks on its exploration. Tai chi is not just about health or about self-defense, but about the development of the whole individual—body, mind, and spirit. This book will introduce you to tai chi as a system of movement with a variety of health, fighting, and self-development aspects. The roots of tai chi are ancient, but its principles remain applicable in the highly pressurized modern world.
Illustrated Elements of Tai Chi is a comprehensive introduction to an ancient Eastern practice that is becoming more and more popular in the West in response to the pressures of modern life. Tai chi is a holistic healing art that embraces body, mind, and spirit. It improves physical and mental well-being through posture training and exercising all parts of the body, combined with encouraging greater awareness of the links between body and mind. Practiced regularly and with dedication, tai chi becomes a system of self-development and encourages a flowering of personal creativity.
TAI CHI IS rooted in the rich soil of ancient Chinese thought, which is based on observing the way things work in nature. The art embodies the concept of continuous change from one extreme to the other as expressed in the ancient book of wisdom, the I Ching: “When the sun has reached its meridian, it declines, and when the moon has become full, it wanes.” Tai chi stems from the ancient philosophy of Taoism, which arose at a time when China’s earliest martial traditions were emerging, among agricultural peoples whose lives were frequently disrupted by wars waged by contending states. And it was founded on the principle of following the natural way or Tao – the ancient philosophy of Taoism.
The Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu is said to have been Official Archivist of the State of Chou (1st century B.C.E.).
TAOIST PHILOSOPHY
The first written records of tai chi practice do not appear until the end of the first millennium C.E. However, the art is known to have been developed perhaps a thousand years earlier by Taoist recluses who retreated from the world to mountain hermitages to contemplate the meaning of action by studying nature.
Taoism is an ancient Chinese system of thought that attempts