Challenges Inherent to T’ai Chi Research: Part I—T’ai Chi

[attilio]

Hi all,

See attached article written by Peter Wayne and Ted Kaptchuk.

[zinnia]

I can't figure out how to get this as a digest. Actually why doesn't this
all flow through TCM?


Thank you.
Zinnia
cmszinnia@gmail.com

[FrancesGander]

I'll respond after reading & reflecting on the article. VERY interesting!

[FrancesGander]

So much t'ai chi research has been wasteful or pointless. This paper gives us some ideas why they don't work and what is needed to be taken into consideration when doing t'ai chi research. With t'ai chi's therapeutic components in 8 categories, researchers' work is made more difficult. For those who take it into account, perhaps their work will be substantial. Way cool.

[attilio]

I can't figure out how to get this as a digest. Actually why doesn't this all flow through TCM?

Click on this link and you can adjust your subscription for all forums: http://www.chinesemedicinetimes.com/forum/subscribeforums.php?do=list

[renegoris]

dear all, interesting article and certainly a useful contribution. but let me add some things people usually don't know a bout taijiquan. first of all, the first who wrote about taijiquan is Zhang Sanfeng, a respectful Quangzhen daoist cult leader in the Song dynasty, which is over a 1000 years ago. he was a doctor and daoist monk holding residence in the wudang mountains. he wrote several books trying to make daoist ideology and medicine ideas accessible to the court and to lay people. his main work on the health benefits of taijiquan is the Taijineidanjing.
in taijiquan as a health praactice the intention is to bridge the wildness of weiqi with the need for calmness for the yingqi. it is the wildnes which makes it gongfu. the wei is wild becuase it is yang (steam) to keep invaders such as ghosts, demons and other environment related stuffs out. ofcourse nowadays people call them virusses and bacterias, but they are equally invisible so how you call them is not so important, they allways come in groups! the yin is more like water and needs to carry the qi from the organs around, give embodyment to blood and so on. he compares wei with warriors and yin with officals. each there job.
in fact the wildness is stimulated by the burdening of the body and the harmony by how the breath behaves. doing breathing exercises in taijiquan originates from how the in dian military used yoga and gave birht to what is nowadays called ancient yoga. this also influenced western bodyworkers such bioenergetics, reichian work a.s.o. this spilled over to modern taijiquan practice. the simplified forms of taijiquan in china moreover are intended to pacify and stimulate larges crowds of elderly people. in that respect all exercise, even just walking would come out with similar results in modern research. so much results are doubled. taijiquan more then a body exercise is a combined psychological and body exercise. the hardship experienced in taijiquan is to balance and strenghten the mind in preparation for concentration during the dying proces. with these things in mind daoist taijiquan and modern taijiquan are very different things. from that perspective it would interesting to create new research.

rene goris
International Oriental College, Amsterdam, NL
Wudang Health Academy, Wuhan, CN
Inercultural Open University distance learning dept. China