World Tai Chi & Qigong Day

This coming Saturday, April 26, is the annual World Tai Chi and Qigong Day, and this year is the 10th anniversary of the international event to promote Tai Chi's health maintenance values. According to Angela and Bill Douglas, co-founder of the event, this year the event will be celebrated in more than 60 countries of the world and all 50 American states. Celebration will begin at 10 AM local time, beginning in New Zealand, as thousands and thousands of Tai chi practitioners perform group exercise to commemorate this Day. As a Taichi practitioner, I admire the Douglases for their efforts and enthusiasm and faith in promoting this very beneficial exercise, and I wish them further success.

Already in many Asian cities, groups of people of all ages practicing Tai Chi in unison is a common scene. Visitors to China especially can always see people practicing Taichi in parks or in their own yards.

In the Western society, I have noticed that in many people's mind, Taichi is still a somewhat mysterious activity with a violent bend. Whereas Taichi might have been practiced in the ancient time in China for self-defense purpose, that would have been only for people who lived in the wild unprotected by the civilized community. By far more people practiced it for health purposes or as a performing martial art. In China, Taichi has been a very popular health maintenance exercise for the past century and no one think it has anything to do with self-defense.

Another misconception about Taichi is that it is an exercise for women and the very old. In the Western society, there is a mindset especially among males that glorifies speed and physical strength. Since Taichi exercise appears gentle and slow, it is "un-masculine" and therefore not something for a self-respecting male. While pursuing speed is sometime necessary, the body also needs to relax in order to rejuvenate itself. The value of "inner strength" in a person, something that Taichi exercise helps cultivate, is often missed by those who has only a superficial perception.

Yet another misconception of Taichi is that it is too complicated. To some extent this is true. Not only there are several different "family" styles, there are exercises with different numbers of movements. I myself did attempt to learn Taichi about 20 years ago, but gave up after a few weeks. Now I practice a simplified form of Taichi /Qigong exercise which I call The Body-Mind Exercise, or Taichi Light. This exercise take 18 basic Taichi movements and repeat each one six times, thus it is easier to learn and to practice. I thought if people are discouraged from learning Taichi because it is too difficult, then this simplified form may encourage more people to learn. After all half a loaf is better than none. However, simplified or not, to really benefit from Taichi still requires persistence and consistent practice for a period of time.

In promoting the value of Taichi exercise around the world, there is a need to emphasize its benefits for people of all ages and for both genders. Having practiced Taichi for only 8 years, I have observed significant health improvement for myself. I only wish I had started practicing years ago. I can only imagine what our new generation will benefit health-wise if we make it a routine for elementary schools to have all school children do 15 minutes of Taichi each school day.