This is one of the few places where people are arguing specifically about the origin of the martial art. Might be a big fight considering T’ai Chi and the philosophies and martial arts associated with it are an extremely important part of chinese history.

Nobody’s discussed the spiritual principles of the art. It might be that it’s controversial, but that’s all the more reason to bring it up. I’m not a martial artist myself. My biggest interest here is actually in Taijiquan. I haven’t practiced the movement at all yet because I feel it is important to learn to cultivate ch’i through meditation first; then, I plan to learn the meditative movements and the generation of jing. Ch’i is one’s internal energy. You have it all your life, but through meditation and movements, one can learn to cultivate it into something stronger and also to manipulate it, moving it around one’s body. Once one has mastered their ch’i, they can turn it into jing, which is internal power. This is done through a special meditation called condensing breathing, which, in a way, reinforces your body’s structure by forcing the ch’i deep down into your bones. This is supposedly how some people are able to push others several feet across the floor with a tiny push of the elbow. There are also mysterious techniques that are believed to allow people to project their ch’i at opponents out of reach. It is the awesome power of ch’i that earns this martial art the title of “the grand ultimate,” and a T’ai Chi master is said to be capable of defeating any other master, for they have true control of their internal energy.

Personally, I believe in the existence and power of ch’i, and even though I’m not a very disciplined person, I feel that it would be a very good thing to master my own. One of the problems with this, is there are limits to what an amateur can safely do. The art is about controlling the flow of energy, and without the supervision of a master, one might horribly distort that flow without realizing it, throwing everything in them out of balance. For now, I’ll just keep working on ch’i cultivation meditation and soon the movement, but I’ll have to find a teacher one day.

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