By Robin Gamble a Wahnam Taijiquan instructor

Taijiquan is a wonderful art from China. I know this from personal experience. At a basic level it has given me good health and a strong body. At a higher level through practice it allows me to spar and train with my training partners for several hours without feeling fatigued or aggressive but actually invigorated and energised. At a higher level still it has occasionally given me an indescribable joy that radiates from within me.

To many people with their current ideas or understanding of Taijiquan this may sound unbelievable, and that would be a fair judgement as not many people have seen or practised Taijiquan. Many have however seen Tai Chi dance practised for health, in fact many people who practice Tai Chi dance are unaware that what they are practising was ever a martial art. They may never experience the wonders of Taijiquan. This is a pity for a few reasons; the benefits acquired through Tai Chi dance will only ever be that of dancing, such as some co-ordination, elegant movement and looseness of the joints. These benefits are not to be shunned or snubbed, but they are pale in comparison to the benefits a practitioner of Taijiquan should expect when training Taijiquan as an internal art for health, combat and spiritual cultivation. These typical benefits include; increased energy and vitality, the ability to defend ones self, and good physical, mental and spiritual health (regardless of ones religious beliefs). It is indeed ironic that most people who dance Tai Chi (for instance business people with not much time and the elderly) are still better suited to that pursuit than to training Taijiquan, as the latter actually requires hard work, a bit of time and some effort. Although the benefits of proper training far outweigh the time and effort spent.

Taijiquan is an internal martial art. It trains the form, energy and mind. In combat it trains us to have good posture and stances, which helps us to open our hearts and to walk and stand upright. In combat, force is important. The approach to force training in Taijiquan is internal with emphasis placed on training intrinsic energy and the mind. This means that you do not have to strike sandbags with your hands or kick poles with your legs, which are external methods of developing force. Developing internal force also means you will have more energy for your work and play. Through Chi Kung (literally translated as energy skills) and meditation we can also develop a clear mind with which we can observe our opponents moves calmly and react accordingly, this also increases our mental clarity for better physical and emotional health. This particular aspect of Taijiquan really sets it apart from other martial arts, some of which encourage aggressive and antisocial attitudes in sparring.

There are many different accounts of how Taijiquan came to be, but the one largely accepted by most practitioners is that the first patriarch of Taijiquan was the Taoist priest Zhang San Feng who lived towards the end of the Song Dynasty in the 13th Century in China. After finishing his martial arts, Chi Kung and Zen training at the Shaolin temple, Zhang San Feng travelled to Wudang Shan (a group of beautiful mountains in China where there are many Taoist temples) to continue his martial training and spiritual cultivation. After watching a fight between a snake and a crane he was inspired to change his relatively hard style kung fu (a Chinese term for martial art) to a softer form, which emphasized breath control, visualization and internal force development and discarded external conditioning methods like hitting sandbags to develop force. For this reason he is generally accepted as the first patriarch of internal kung fu.

The term Taiji or Tai Chi literally means "the grand ultimate" or figuratively "the Cosmos". Chuan is short for the Chinese term Chuan Fa which means "fist techniques" or what most people today would know as kung fu. So a suitable translation of Taijiquan is "Cosmos Kung Fu". Within Taiji (or the cosmos) are ying and yang, the two opposing yet complementary aspects of everything in the universe. The name Taijiquan is derived from this concept of ying and yang and is manifested in the four dimensions of Taijiquan, form, force training, application and theory. For example to practice form with no regard to internal force or martial application is not in keeping with ying yang harmony and would be classed as excessive ying. Like wise to practice only sparring and martial application with no regard for the mental or health aspects of Taijiquan would also not be in keeping with ying yang harmony, and would be classed as excessive yang. Harmony between yin and yang is a great principle that is essential to ultimate success in Taijiquan training, but it can also be applied to countless situations outside of martial arts to ensure health and happiness.

Taijiquan surely is a treasure. At a basic level it can give us radiant health, at a higher level it can give us excellent self defence skills, and at the highest level it can lead to spiritual joy regardless of ones religious beliefs or lack off. But the wonders of this treasure will not be discovered through "Taiji dance" they will only be revealed if we train high level Taijiquan in the correct fashion.

Robin Gamble is an inner chamber disciple of Grandmaster Wong Kiew. For details of Wahnam Taijiquan courses being taught by Robin Gamble please e-mail him at robgamble99@hotmail.com.