After 40 years of practice and 20 years of teaching, I am used to being asked this question in various forms – will it help my physical condition, will it help my emotional or spiritual condition, what does it do, what does it offer? Basically, just Why Tai Chi?
Well, my personal journey has included all of these – my entry was from 10 years of martial arts and a doctor’s recommendation to deal with severe stress, but since my teens I had been looking for a better approach to life than was offered by the post Victorian post war society as it was.
Tai Chi has provided a way of looking at the world and relationships and of dealing with them while learning to look after my mind and body, a way to maintain health and function into older age and a way to engage socially with like minded people.
So if you ask me Why Tai Chi? I will probably say – just do it and find out. Tai Chi is a personal reflection of the world we live in on a very personal physical and mental/spiritual level – but then that is just my experience.
