Categories: Qi Gong

Why is so Slow When Playing Tai Chi Chuan?

Tai Chi has five benefits: fitness, self-cultivation, healing, enjoyment, and self-defense.

It encompasses five fields: philosophy, mechanics, traditional Chinese medicine, military science, and aesthetics. Due to the complexity of these fields, along with dozens of intricate movements, numerous principles, and the precise balance required, it is impossible to grasp the essence of Tai Chi without slow and even practice.

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Complexity and Slow Practice

Due to the complexity of these fields, along with dozens of intricate movements, numerous principles, and the precise balance required, it is impossible to grasp the essence of Tai Chi without slow and even practice.
Slow practice helps in understanding the core principles of Tai Chi, such as maintaining an upright and comfortable posture, relaxing the whole body, and achieving smooth and continuous movements.
It also helps to avoid issues that arise from fast practice, such as incorrect upper body posture, swaying, and stiffness.
A Tai Chi master once said that maintaining balance and relaxation is the basic requirement for beginners.

Balance and Stability

“Balance” means standing upright with a straight line from top to bottom.
“Stability” means that the body should not sway and should remain steady.
Relaxation is the soul of Tai Chi, requiring both the mind and body to be relaxed inside and out.
Understanding these concepts is only the beginning; achieving physical and mental comprehension requires a long period of practice.

Distinguishing Between Emptiness and Solidity

Slow practice helps distinguish between emptiness and solidity, stabilizing the lower body.
Tai Chi emphasizes distinguishing between empty and solid states.
If one can differentiate between the two, movements will become light and effortless. If not, steps will be heavy and unsteady.
The first step is achieving balance and relaxation, and the second step is strengthening the lower body.
The alignment from top to bottom, and the changes in the lower body’s yin and yang, form the foundation.
Without a solid foundation, everything will collapse.
To strengthen the lower body, practice shifting the weight from one leg to another slowly and evenly.
Clear differentiation between empty and solid states will make the solid leg more stable and the empty leg lighter.
Achieving the ideal effect involves feeling every movement as if it is supported in all directions.
Tai Chi movements, like a cat’s steps or drawing silk, demonstrate this through slow and even weight shifts and clear differentiation between empty and solid states.

Leading with the Waist

Tai Chi emphasizes training the waist as the main source of movement.
All actions should be driven by the waist, including advancing, retreating, and lateral movements.
The feet and hands should not exert force independently but should be guided by the waist (and sometimes the hips) in circular motions.
Tai Chi’s principle is “its root is in the feet, it is issued through the legs, governed by the waist, and manifested in the fingers.”
The strength in the hands originates from the feet.
If the hands move independently, the coordinated strength dissipates.
To develop coordinated strength, the waist must lead.
This feeling of coordinated strength can only be experienced through slow and even practice.

Using Intention Rather Than Force

The “Ten Essentials of Tai Chi” clearly state: “The human body has channels like the earth has ditches. If the ditches are not blocked, water flows; if the channels are not obstructed, qi circulates.”
Continuous practice ensures smooth flow of qi and blood, resulting in genuine internal strength.
Not using force means gradually eliminating clumsy strength through long-term practice.
Moderation applies not only to physical movements but also to intention and strength.
Using intention should be moderate; too much intention inadvertently uses clumsy strength, while too little loses the expansive strength (peng jin) of Tai Chi.
Practicing slowly and evenly ensures both speed and strength are balanced and moderate.
Fast practice makes it difficult to properly use and understand force.

Benefits of Slow Tai Chi Practice

Normative and Accurate Movements
- Slow practice helps to standardize and perfect the movements.
- It allows peers to identify and correct mistakes.
- Fast practice makes it difficult to discern right from wrong, and peers cannot easily see if the movements are accurate.
- Correct positioning is crucial; for example, the correct placement of the hands leads to effective force, while incorrect placement results in lost force.
Cultivating Mind and Character
- Long-term slow practice cultivates the habit of focused, calm, and relaxed training.
- This mindset can be consciously integrated into daily life, helping to remain composed in stressful situations and handle conflicts calmly and appropriately.
- Giving way in conflicts often resolves issues quickly, which is a state of mind difficult to achieve with fast practice.
Pace of Slow Practice
- The appropriate pace of slow practice varies based on age, physical condition, training stage, skill level, and goals.
- For example, a traditional Yang style 85-form set can be performed in 20-30 minutes, or extended to 40 minutes or more.
- Slow practice involves not just reducing the speed but also maintaining smooth and continuous movements, avoiding interruptions and fluctuations.
- If a practitioner lacks balance and leg strength, they should not force a slow pace but rather practice stance work and Tai Chi steps to gradually transition from fast to slow.
Health Benefits
- Slow Tai Chi practice is highly beneficial for fitness, health maintenance, disease prevention, and treatment.
- Traditional Chinese medicine believes that poor circulation of qi and blood leads to illness, whereas smooth circulation promotes health.
- Tai Chi’s gentle, slow, and continuous movements, guided by intention and qi, help to clear the meridians, promote blood flow, and enhance metabolism.
- This practice improves the function of various organs and systems, increasing adaptability to the environment and resistance to disease.
- The constant waist rotation in slow Tai Chi provides a good massage for the internal organs, especially when the entire body is relaxed and the mind is calm, which benefits the cerebral cortex.