International Snake Style Association
- Ip Family Tai Chi Chuan -

Tai Chi Chuan, health and chronic ailment

What follows is a list of interesting information from an interested layman to interested laymen, giving a summary on the topic: Tai Chi Chuan = Martial Art = beneficial for health

Tai Chi Chuan is noted as one of the outstanding martial arts from china, and at first it is hard to see a connection between martial art and health. Tai Chi (chuan) is mostly known a a sport, practiced by the elderly in Chinese parks, developing relaxation and, at best, some feeling for balance. The fact, that tai chi so much more surfaces slowly throughout the western hemisphere, and more and more people visit tai chi schools to learn self defense and application, a topic that was mostly laughed on some 10 years ago in context with tai chi.

Now, where exactly lies the beneficial aspect - regarding health - in tai chi chuan? To explain that, one has to have a better understanding of the human body. Our whole physiological setup has been optimized by nature over the millennia towards one goal - MOVEMENT! All adjustments throughout our evolution served only one purpose, to move more agile and dexterously, thus gaining advantage over our competitors on the wide field of hunting and gathering food.

Until the beginning of industrialization, acquiring food was strenuous work, demanding the use of the whole body. In the beginning one had to climb trees and walk mile after mile to hunt for prey. In later times one had to manually work the fields, look after the livestock and at least had to go to the marketplace to buy and sell wares. Our modern refrigerators and stowing capabilities where not yet invented. The central focus point for ones body was "movement".

The industrialization changed everything. To explain this I want to use the example of a so called "MCP":
The MCP drives comfortably with his car or a bus to go shopping, and sometimes even takes home supplies for several weeks. He picks up the telephone to order a pizza, and the meal gets delivered to his door.
In the morning he goes approximately 20 steps to his car, drives to his work, goes another 20 steps to his chair in the office, moves down to the staff restaurant for lunch and gathers his food from the display, uses the elevator back up to the office and drags himself back to his car after work, only to crash down on the comfy sofa after a strenuous day of hard MENTAL work to relax with some potato chips and a glass of good wine in front of the TV, to regain energy for the next day. This is the typical day-to-day routine of a MCP, a Mega-Couch-Potato.

I hope that most of you now think: "this is exaggerated, it is not like that with me, and also not like my friends" - that would be great! But also it is scary to see, how many people actually  live by large and far after a likewise routine as mentioned above

Our body is optimized for movement, but on the other hand he is also a specialist on survival. That means that he can lower or even shut down the maintenance of not needed body parts/-functions to save energy.

This finally results in deactivation of unused muscular fibers and groups, which has two results: muscular groups fell like they are "shortened", where in fact they simply are not as flexible as before anymore and wont stretch as far as they used to to. A muscle does not really shorten but simply feels that way. Muscles that are not used anymore, but are under constant strain, get tired and become flaccid. To counter these effects one can train specific sets for stretching and reactivating the according muscular groups, to get the overall muscular tone back into balance - not to strong and not to weak.

"Shortened" and flaccid muscular groups are often in direct relation to one and another, just like tight chest- and flaccid upper-back muscles cause forward sagging shoulders. Here followes a list of primaly connected muscular groups, in regard to this dynamics:

Simplified one can say that all our rear muscles serve to keep the body upright and the front muscles are used to bend forward and to balance the power of our rear muscles. Only when these two parts are balanced in harmony will the body be working free of pain. To put in Chinese, Yin (front) and Yang (rear) must be in harmony. In addition we have to regard the muscles on the sides of our body, which work in tight relation with our front and back muscles, and play an immensely important role in our proper body alignment and posture.

In previous times, sagging shoulders and a rounded upper back (flaccidity of the back muscles and "shortening" of the chest muscles) have been an ailment of the elderly. Nowadays it is most often seen already with kids and teenagers and one can pinpoint it mostly on: much to little moving combined with long periods of sitting in school, in front of a computer and in front of the television.

Then lets not forget the three mayor pumping stations in our body.

The best known pump is our heart. One notices quite fast if the heart is not pumping properly, appearing  dizziness anxiety in the chest and inefficiency are common symptoms for that. Normally everyone notices this symptoms and goes to a doctor for a checkup.

The second and less known pumping station is our diaphragm. The diaphragm contracts and expands in cycles thus enlarging and reducing the lung volume, pumping air into our lungs. With newborns and infants one can see this quite beautifully. Due to this diaphragm breathing (aka: "abdominal breathing") the belly area expands and contracts in all directions. This causes a light massage/stimulation of all the inner organs in the abdominal area, causing better functions of these organs. This kind of breathing (contrary to the commonly used chest breathing with an unused diaphragm and static abdominal region) is also the unconscious breathing which is used automatically in a truly relaxed state of body and mind, if the abdominal muscles are not yet flaccid or tense. Furthermore this kind of breathing uses up least of our energy, and due to the effect of the inner massage it lowers the blood pressure and supports the digestion process.

The third great pumping system is our set of legs. Ever since Newton found out about gravity everything in our body feels drawn to the ground :)  Not only our organs tend to sag downwards, but so do all our fluids, like blood, lymph and water. While just walking normally our leg muscles contract and expand automatically, thus helping to pump up into our upper body all these fluids, supporting the complete circulation of all fluids around in our system.

Now back to our MCP, this "TV watching -potato chips munching - non mover".

If we look at the daily routine of our MCP, we notice that he is almost never using his the pumping stations at normal level. The legs are mostly resting and do not support the transport of fluids. Due to a lot of sitting the diaphragm breathing has shut down and made way for chest breathing only. While this is absolutely sufficient to stay alive, non of the massaging/activating activities to the inner organs are executed and also there is not a very high rate of air exchange within the lungs so stale air stays much longer within his system. Since he is very passive in all his movements his heart is not stimulated much, and so the heart muscle also stepped down in gear. We won't even look closer at the condition of his further muscular system, for that went into retirement quite some time ago due to inactivity.

Since one can not avoid all the time to move in a certain, unusual way, like when lifting something heavy into the trunk of a car, bending down to tie the shoes, etc. the body would normally use these "out of commission" muscles to do so. Problem is, this reactivating does not happen at "speed of thought" but takes some time. This is when another incredible ability of our body kicks in - improvisation. Since we do not only posses this one relevant muscle for the job at hand, but hundreds and hundreds more, our body activates the "next best" muscles for the coming movement, even though they are not primary designed for that, and this is where the problems all start. Due to the uncommon strain tension arises in the muscle fibers, which lead to sever tension and as a result of that to chronic (tension based) affliction. Mental stress lead to a further rise of tension in the body, adding up on the already existing, physical originated tension. All this is commonly taken in as "normal" status of life, or as a sign of showing age or circumstances of life. Help is usually sought in medication, which do not cure the ailment, but suppress them for some time. Another approach are surgeries, which are to "repair" or remove the aching parts, because this is what is thought the usual way, or because normal bodily effort is found to be to arduous.

Modern medzin often gives the impression of a battlefield (the body) upon which a battle (surgery/medicamentation) is fought against an enemy (ailment/illness).  It is encouraging to see, that more and more effort is put into a holistic view/approach on the human body and its casual relations that cause problems. Experts on this field of casual relations on body mechanics are well trained osteopaths' for example, who can do "marvelous" things because they see the body as a whole unit, and not just look at one isolated arm problem.

One can very well help oneself, ideally in prevention, but also in actual situations - and that is "to move". With moving one stimulates natures finely tuned marvel called "body" to regulate itself and to get back into ballance. The more severe the accumulated dysfunctions and impairments are, the more likely it is that one should also consult a medical expert to guide one in movement and recovery.

The art of tai chi chuan now offers an opportunity to prevent dysfunctions and chronic tensions due to its whole body movements which softly stimulate all muscle groups from the toes up to the crown of the head. For solid rooting/standing one concentrates on the proper foot-, knee- and leg postures, for stepping, leg rotating and kicking one works with the adductors and abductors, as well as with the opening and closing of the hip joints and the general flexibility in the pelvic area.
For techniques in the upper body region one works on achieving a flexible waist, the flex and stretch ability of the upper body, the flexibility of the rib cage and rib cartilage as well as the flex, stretch and torque ability of the spine.
Especially the torsion and mobilization of the upper body, spine and ribcage area are major strong points in Snakestyle Tai Chi Chuan of the Yang family.
For arm techniques the shoulder area and joint flexibility is of major importance and is trained accordingly for flexibility, movability, natural positioning and power. Following that up, the elbows, wrists and finger joints all get integrated into that workout.
Also the neck/throat/head positioning, mobility and relaxation are specifically trained.
Due to training in deep, relaxed breathing the 2nd pumping station, the diaphragm, slowly gets back online, and with stepping, sinking, rising and kicking the 3rd pump, the legs, also join in again.

For the body moves again, and all the cells demand more and more oxygen our 1st pump gets into gear again, so the heart looses all interest in a prolonged winter sleep - so the whole system "human" becomes more and more activated again.
 
All the old masters of tai chi say, that simply by training the tai chi chuan form ones health gets boosted immensely, but that the full effect of it only comes to light when also training the martial aspect of tai chi chuan.
Now, how can it be healthy if my training partner just knocked me back, and I am sitting on my buttocks on the floor? Well, for one it helps to remind one of mister Miyagis advice:"...don't be there, if a punch is thrown at you.." J but more important in that regard are two other factors.

Number one is, that in training with a partner one is forced to do unusual body movements all the time, that do not occur in normal form training - for nobody "threatens" to hit oneself in that. One has to adjust to all unexpected actions of the training partner and thus activates a fireworks of impulses that stimulate all these unused muscle areas and awakens them over time.
Number two is the mental orientation. One leaves behind a supposed victimhood with growing experience in fighting and self defense applications, one develops more self-esteem, self confidence and more self-reliance. This also reflects outwards and oneself (and others) does not regard oneself as a target, but more as one who is able to help and support others

It is, of course, not nearly as easy as taking a little pill against pain. One has to train regularly, but therefore the benefits are long lasting and one becomes able again, to take care of ones health oneself.

Many tai chi students of my own and other tai chi schools have stated that their back pain, hip problems, dysfunctional sense of balance, and so on have reduced or are gone for good, since they started to train tai chi chuan regularly. To achieve that, one has to invest about 15 minutes daily, leading a "normal" lifestyle.
If one already is an "MCP", additional changes in lifestyle, and unhealthy habits have to be done. Tai chi chuan is not magic, neither in martial aspects nor in health aspects. It is good and solid biomechanics combined with the proper use of our body energy system (Qi/chi), lead by a spirited mind (shen) focused on a goal (Ji) that one wants to achieve.