There are hundreds of millions of people who learned Tai Chi is something that it is not and now they're left to grapple with it.
This is superstition being exposed by the scientific method. Tai Chi is a pretend martial art that many people enjoy practicing. That doesn't make it worthless. It's a gentle exercise that isn't identical to others so it will have a somewhat unique benefit profile if you look deep enough. But the lens of science has burned away all the other bullshit and what's left is a mundane exercise with a unique cultural context. And that's fine, but hundreds of millions have yet to come to terms with that. It is difficult to have part of your worldview completely destroyed.
I’m a trained “hypno” clinician because I wanted to learn more about the study of suggestion and outcomes.
I remember studies coming out of China saying hypnotherapy could be effective in replacing anesthesia. Then I also found out about how there are many fraudulent studies coming out of China. (1)
With 17,000 retracted studies with Chinese coauthors since 2021.
Now that’s not to say that tai chai doesn’t work, nor does it mean this is fraudulent but it does pay to learn how to read these studies with a critical eye.
There's just this: "342 adults aged 18 to 65 years with prehypertension, defined as systolic blood pressure (SBP) of 120 to 139 mm Hg and/or diastolic BP (DBP) of 80 to 89 mm Hg"
But I agree; any other criteria that reduced the 1189 patients screened down to the final 342 is not mentioned.
I think it was Virtua Fighter that taught me that Tai Chi is also the most powerful of martial arts, when weilded by a master. I've wanted to learn it since.
In the 19th century Tai Chi was a real martial art used by professional bodyguards, including by some of those of the emperor.
However it is likely that most of its techniques have been lost and only some of its training exercises converted in health-preserving exercises have been retained.
While there still are some who claim to know which were the original meanings of the movements that compose the existing Tai Chi sequences, it is likely that most, if not all, such interpretations are just modern guesses and they are not based on any surviving secret information.
I believe the benefit to Tai Chi is that you're more in motion.
With Yoga you are more static. If you are static in a position where your muscles are contracted, it's hard to relax.
With Tai Chi you are doing movements which contract and relax your muscles for shorter periods of time, which helps you relax. Also, the fluid movements can bring you to a state of effortlessness, which is of course also relaxing.
There doesn't really seem to be anything unique to single out tai chi in particular in this study. The benefits pointed out in the article --- that it's meditative, encourages stretching and relaxation, improves balance --- seem to also be associated with things like yoga, or just going through a general stretching and mobility routine. They idea that calming yourself (removing stress or just relaxing) will lower your blood pressure is so intuitive to most people that we say someone needs to calm down or "they'll blow a gasket."
The contrast with "vigorous aerobic exercises" is also interesting. The study looked at
> "Aerobic exercise interventions included climbing stairs, jogging, brisk walking, and cycling. Exercise intensity in the aerobic exercise group was monitored. The maximum heart rate was estimated as 208 − (0.7 × age in years)."
which makes you wonder how much the findings compare to the well known benefits of zone-2 HR aerobic training. "Vigorous" is a bit of weird term that suggests very different things between different people. Low HR cardio is usually not considered "vigorous" at all.
Another broader question would be whether maximizing lowered blood pressure is more important than getting people doing "vigorous" aerobic exercise, which brings a whole host of important benefits along with lowering blood pressure. Most people should get a lot more aerobic exercise and use relaxation methods, but I would probably recommend aerobic exercise first.
It's probably worth mentioning that the Chinese government really likes to promote Tai Chi as a cultural and athletic practice, so there's a lot of effort spent on justifying Tai Chi as uniquely beneficial, especially as compared to Yoga or other foreign practices that might have similar benefits. Looking at the author's affiliations on this paper, I imagine this is what they're doing.
I happened to be in Shanghai for a work trip once, meaning the day was pretty booked with meetings indoors. The only time to go sightsee was in the early morning, which revealed a hidden side of the city - streets were filled with elderly people doing tai-chi exercises. It was pretty surreal! I could totally see how it would be a ton of fun as a local retiree :-)
I tried to learn some tai chi long ago and found that it is not possible to perform tai chi correctly if you are thinking about anything, including thinking about performing tai chi correctly.
And "not thinking about anything" is exceptionally hard.
My observation is that in both cases it is two steps process:
1. You use conscious part of your mind to slowly doing isolated drills with good control and understanding of every detail. On this step conscious part controls process and unconscious part of mind is being trained by observing the drill and outcome.
2. unconscious part of mind is now trained, and you can disable conscious part which will make result better, because unconscious part is better in contoling motor functions.
More seriously, I can't think of a single reason as to why it could not be at least trained; there must be ways. Not that I disagree with you, far from it.
Nonetheless, the serious half is to be understood with a contextually reasonable definition of "thinking": "the thoughts running through the mind of an adult [when he tries to relax]". It seems fair to argue that such thoughts require a prolonged, sophisticated interaction with human society, which newborns lack.
Yoga is not really comparable, because it is much more static.
Of course, there is nothing magic about the Tai chi sequences and many other sequences of movements executed in a similar manner should have a similar effect.
A general stretching and mobility routine could be equivalent, but only if it would be similarly complete in exercising the whole body. Presumably the manner of executing Tai chi sequences, i.e. slowly and with appropriate respiration, matters.
The advantage of Tai chi sequences or of other sequences derived from Chinese martial arts or their Okinawan derivatives, i.e. various karate kata, is that in comparison with general stretching and mobility routines they are like reciting a poem compared to reciting a few pages memorized from a dictionary.
Such sequences of movements that have a meaning are both more pleasant to execute and easier to remember in every detail, to avoid skipping some parts.
Recently a study showed that isometric exercises (i.e. holding a static position like planking) are more effective at lowering blood pressure than other types[0]. So relatively static exercises (slow moving, holding poses) are probably what you want for this purpose. I think this previous study is a bit more illuminating in general.
It isn't the sequences or even the outward shape of Tai Chi so much as what is happening within the body that generates the shapes and sequences. There are long-term, transformative effect on the body. For example, my own musculature have developed structures you cannot develop through weight-lifting.
I can tell you for example, xingyiquan, baguazhang, bajiquan, wing chun, akijutsu (among many others) all (historically) share a common set of practice principles (yijinjing) with taijiquan, yet what ends up happening under the cover are vastly different. For example, at some level of practice, taijiquan is like working with a beach ball floating on water, but baguazhang is more like winding up wires in different planes of motion. Yet both share a smaller set of common principles.
Although the forms and sequences are now taught as foundations and the source of these changes, they are probably better taught as a capstone in which a practitioner builds up and constructs from primitives over the years of practice. There are some taijiquan practitioners who get into the art a lot deeper than the mainstream, and end up practicing holding specific taijiquan postures statically. (In fact, the historical taijiquan manuals shows the set of core postures, not necessarily the sequence of them).
What kind of structures did you develop that you can't get by weightlifting? I assume these are some kind of stabilizers that you train by some tai chi movements. If this is the case then it should also be possible to train these using a weightlifting regime with some specific movements targeting those stabilizers.
Not stabilizers. It’s a consequence of developing the capability to inflate and expand the muscles instead of movement through contraction. At some level of development, there are ridges that develop that are not conforming to muscle bundles that form from resistance training. Since weight lifting uses only contraction of muscles, it is impossible to develop these ridges I am talking about.
There are a lot of weird capabilities that can come out of it, but those ridges are probably the most obvious effect, yet it is among least documented yet observable effect when you go searching for things about tai chi or yijinjing.
Tai chi has a particular way of moving and developing the body that is distinctively different from yoga. However, there is a wide range of knowledge, skill level and practice principles within the tai chi community as it is with yoga. For example, the way hatha yoga is practiced in America is typically widely different from more traditional hatha yoga.
Also there was a recent study saying isometric exercise, such as wall sits, was better then aerobics at lowering blood pressure. If a tai chi form spends a lot of time holding low stances, that could play a part.
Zone-2 aerobics definitely has plenty of other benefits.
Tai Chi is quite different from what most people will do with stretching.
At least anyone I know or have seen exercising.
Just as Yoga is different than holding stretches.
Both Tai Chi, Yoga, and Katas are somewhat similar, and they all incorporate stylized movements executed in particular sequences
Also, there is a part of them all to master the poses and movements and
in longer sequences remembering it all and remembering corrections and more.
Ritual movements and poses perhaps.
When people stretch you know about how you do it and how to do it.
It does not have the mastery and memory additions.
It does that but the discipline of what, how, how long and
in what sequence separates it in practical terms.
I have done a reasonable amount of Tai Chi (Yang and Chen style), as well as lots of stairs/jogging/walking/cycling (triathlons, mountaineering). The latter sports tend to be quite linear and in a single plane (sagital?), so perhaps moving the body in that extended, circular style of patterning in tai chi helps? However, I find that hiking long distances in varied terrain also gives me that level of meditative feeling, so YMMV.
Someone posted a video below, I noticed it was a Chen practitioner, which makes sense, since I feel the Chen style is more combative and science oriented, e.g. the body is not kept upright like in the other styles, but leans in the direction of force; there's emphasis on circular movement of the body (and not just the obvious hip movement like in karate) to generate force, and distal limbs or tools are then snapped at execution to impart that force.
Except you're wrong, and this type of construction is extremely common. Take "pine tree" for example. There's nothing "incorrect" about calling it chai tea.
In this case, I would argue that it does. "Sahara" means "desert", but "Sahara Desert" is still the proper name for that place. "Naan" means "bread", but it's also the name we use for the kind of bread originally made by the people who speak the language where "naan" means "bread". Likewise, "chai tea" is a perfectly fine name for tea made in the style of the people whose word for "tea" is "chai". Languages do this all the time.
That’s not a given in many coffee shops. Adding spices makes it “masala chai”, which some sell as a separate drink. Some don’t put spices and call it “chai latte”.
> Masala chai is a popular beverage throughout South Asia, originating in the early modern Indian subcontinent. Chai is made by brewing black tea (usually CTC tea) in milk and water and then sweetening with sugar. Adding aromatic herbs and spices creates masala chai, although chai is often prepared unspiced.[2][3]
It's great to refer to things by their proper names, never mind the corruption that English has adopted.
Still, rude to correct someone for using what's essentially a colloquialism. If enough people use a word 'wrong' then, well, that's a new usage that we can't ignore or get prescriptive about. Because prescriptive usage is from some point of view after all. The Chai tea people have their point of view, and are correct within their community.
I suspect that if we venture into the streets of an American city and interview random passers-by, fewer than 10% will know that "chai" is a word that already means "tea".
You're not a purist, you're just incorrect. We are speaking English, so saying that it is redundant isn't true. Just like how Hound means generic dog in German but hunting dog in English, or rouge means red in French but means a kind of makeup in English, Chai doesn't mean tea in English and thus there is no redundancy here.
Chai means (Indian) tea with milk. It’s a borrowed term in English that already includes the meaning. Just like you don’t use “yoga exercise” in English because yoga already means a form of exercise. Or the usage of “karma” in English. You don’t say “karma fate”.
Yes, loanwords don't operate consistently when brought from one language to another. That does not mean that one way they work is "wrong" and the other way is "right", it just means language is complicated. You're the one coming here and telling people they are wrong.
Edit: Like in Italian Latte just means milk, but in English it means an espresso with steamed and then frothed milk on top, what would be called a cappuccino in Italy usually. Americans calling it a latte aren't wrong, they're just using a loanword to mean something different then the original language.
How is chai tea used differently in America then? If I ask for it in a coffee shop, I usually get chai (tea) with steamed milk, which is exactly what the original usage is.
Looking at the Starbucks app right now for example on their menu: Chai tea is black tea with clove, cardamom, cinamon, and ginger and no milk by default, Chai Tea Latte is that black tea and spices with steamed milk. You'll also see Chai sometimes to refer to the spice mix sold without any tea.
In my local coffee shop, I get black tea with steamed milk (called chai tea).
They also sell masala chai, which is the above + spices added.
Starbucks uses chai tea and chai tea latte to mean something else.
Some grocery stores (Trader Joe's?) sell chai as just a spice mix.
So Americans aren't really using it "differently" as much as they're using it wildly inconsistently. That's not really the same as cappuccino vs latte, is it? Latte is at least used to mean the same thing across the country.
Chai (or a variation) is the name for tea in half of the world [1], so if you say "chai" you are just saying "tea", while if you say "Chai Tea", if I understand correctly, you are probably referring to a specific beverage [2]
Seems like since Yoga is so wide-spread, and similar, that would be an obvious comparison. They should have studied them side by side. But don't think study even mentions yoga? Did I miss it?
Long ago, maybe before the consumer internet, I saw a video claiming to showcase people who studied tai chi as a fighting art instead of just exercise. It was a lot of being able to follow the other person's movements to the point that "Fighting a tai chi master is like wrestling with an empty jacket". There was also a demonstration where a master pushed a student's middle finger back using an open palm. No matter how the student spun around and whipped his hand around, he couldn't get his finger away from the pressure of the palm that was following him around.
No idea how legit it was. I've never seen tai chi presented primarily as self-defense since.
There are a lot of possibly exaggerated, and somewhat dubious, legends about Cheng Man Ching (who created the "Yang style" I believe). In one such story, he performs an exhibition match at the British Embassy in Chungking during WWII, and none of the British soldiers manage to land a single hit. In the story, the British army ends up so impressed they decide to study T'ai Chi.
Ah yes, thank you! The Cheng Man Ching so-called "short form" would be considered a descendant/variation of Yang style then. I assume we're more familiar with Cheng Man Ching in the West due to his travels and teachings in the US. Hard to say how closely related to the source modern-day lessons are TBH.
I've seen a video of a Tai-Chi master fighting a whole group of students of his simultaneously. He did things like throw several of them off the mat by swooshing his hands at them.
It was obvious to me that the students were simply responding to what they saw the master doing. I don't believe for one second that it would have worked if the students had blindfolds on.
Alarm bells go off in my head whenever the demonstration of an extraordinary martial arts skill is being done by a master and his student. Maybe the most egregious example of how this sort of dynamic can work out is George Dillman and his "no touch knockouts". It's easy enough to find amusing YouTube videos showing how that worked out when someone roped him into trying to demonstrate the technique on someone who wasn't a student of his.
Anyway, it's usually not nearly that spectacular, but the same basic dynamic has historically pervaded many martial arts. Participants in one style typically only practice and spar with each other, and the "more advanced" techniques might only be demonstrated using advanced students who wouldn't get to be that advanced in the first place without being heavily bought into the whole thing, so you can get some almost cult-like dynamics coming into play.
Reminds me of this guy, who got a ton of blowback for calling out fake martial arts masters, goading them into fights and humiliating them: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xu_Xiaodong
> Xu started a dispute with Wei on social media, beginning with a demand that Wei provide evidence of his abilities, and culminating in a bare-knuckle fight in a basement in Chengdu in 2017, where Xu won convincingly in less than 20 seconds.
Mentalist Derren Brown also did an episode where he took advantage of students of this kind of teaching, by using their "brainwashed" instincts against them to demonstrate he had the same powers as their sensei, even though he had no martial arts training.
There are some ancient arts that are unbelievably powerful. We have forgotten breath techniques that allow you to survive in space and travel backwards through time. It is said that some of the great warriors of the past practised these techniques. How could David destroy Goliath? With a sling? I broke my arm once and had it in a sling. Wouldn't have helped me destroy a titan. It was martial arts.
Some say Superman wasn't just a comic book story but a real man who used these techniques. Unfortunately, he defected to the Japanese and so we had to drop an atomic bomb to stop him. Many of the unique methods were lost with him.
I mean there are stories of people believing kung fu training would make them impervious to bullets, so that doesn't seem too big a leap. Wasn't breatharianism a thing people believed in?
Very sceptical of such claims. It's quite easy to ascertain them too. You pressure test the system (or your variant of it) in a lab (ie. in a fighting ring). If it can hold up against fighters of a certain level of skill, you can, in a way, claim to be atleast as good as them. Otherwise, you're not.
The book "Professor in the Cage" goes into this distinction at length. It's an interesting thing to consider for people like me who are into martial arts.
If you can find a competent instructor from a lineage that preserved the fighting applications of tai chi, you can see some pretty interesting grappling and joint-locking techniques. It's not all snake oil.
The purpose is to practice slowly with care to learn the moves thoroughly so that when it's time to perform them quickly you'll know the form and can flow quickly - the teacher was showing slow demonstrations.
I've never fought anyone, but as I've been taught the moves in Tai Chi's martial technique are generally intended to put people down quickly and hard by doing things like breaking elbows, eye gouges, and other grappling intended to severely injure the other party, essentially breaking every MMA rule that would get you disqualified.
This all varies significantly depending on the teacher, my teacher studied Chinese grappling, Mongolian wrestling, Aikido, and other arts that I'm sure he brought elements in from.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc3Q6vqvemA this is pretty much what high level skills in Tai Chi look like. You can see that it's mainly very, very secure footwork and explosive coordinated force delivered when the opponent is off balance -- this is a grappling situation but the logic is pretty similar if they were hitting each-other or even using swords / spears.
My Tai Chi teacher (Yang Family) is also an Aikido teacher and he teaches Tai Chi as a martial art, interpreting the form in terms of blocks, grappling moves, joint locks, etc. He learned at least some of that from earlier Tai Chi teachers who treated it as a cryptic martial art.
Here is a pretty good example of a very large trained fighter and a very excellent and much smaller tai chi guy going at it reasonably hard (like maybe one of them walks away with a concussion type hard).
I think that's a pretty good example of what "people who can actually fight well use tai chi techniques" looks like. A lot of force is going into those throws, bodies are flying, and they aren't students doing a demonstration for a crowd. Legit.
I took Tai Chi during college from a guy with a passion for it (his day job was as a sign painter and he was a pretty firm Christian), with no mystical overtones to his interest at all. The one thing he drove home, repeatedly, was that if you wanted to be prepared a case where you needed fight, there were self-defense classes available, and to study that. He'd even help you find one.
While some of the things he described about studying with masters had elements of the video you describe (if put less strongly), he also expressed that this was folks who had been studying for a long, long time, and moved on from the rote movements associated with Tai Chi to other aspects. He said he'd been studying awhile (at least ten years) and didn't think he could use it to defend himself.
"Fighting" Tai Chi was traditionally taught to people who were already very adept at Kung Fu. If you can already fight the form trains a bunch of clever footwork and a few other things at a really high level; it's _clever_. But if you can't already fight it has none of that basic stuff in it like "how to hit people really hard". If you don't know that already Tai Chi forms won't teach it to you every effectively.
Younger kung fu people wouldn't generally be so into Tai Chi. You'd learn it as you aged so that as you became less athletic you'd be substituting smart for strong and extending your lifetime as an effective fighter. All of this context was lost when it came to the west.
Also: weapons. In China open hand stuff is taught before you attempt the complexity of swinging round a sword but these were (and are) armed arts. Nobody shows up at a real fight without a machete or sabre I believe.
Sure, your blood pressure is not going to be low while you're doing aerobic exercise.
If you do a lot of aerobic exercise consistently, your heart will get bigger and stronger, with a lower resting rate. That will bring your pressure down. It's not uncommon for endurance athletes to feel unusually lightheaded when standing up because of the low blood pressure and slow heart rate.
Both his resting pulse and blood pressure are so low a nurse examining him (for what later turned out to be allergies) once thought he was dying and brought the hospitals cardiologist running while having someone else call the heart surgeon!
I'm honestly not sure his exercise regiment is even healthy, it's a bit on the extreme side, but I doubt tai-chi can bring down anyone's blood pressure as low as his!
It's the only thing that helps me longer term with shoulder issues as well. I work on the computer, play the guitar and am a rock climber. All those activities have the same tendency of rotating the shoulder forward.
As you can imagine, RSI runs big, especially on my right shoulder.
I've had many injuries over the years, tried all sorts of treatments - massages, yoga, physiotherapy, accupuncture, you name it. They all help and sometimes even heal the injuries completely but the only thing that really helps keep it healthy longer term (that I've found) is Tai Chi.
Of couse, being the lazy bastard that I am, after a period with no injuries, I stop practicing it. Until the next injury, or some time into it after I exhaust all other options and eventually get back to Tai Chi and the healing can start properly again.
For computer work, I use a split keyboard. It allows me avoid internally rotating my shoulder. I highly recommend it. Split keyboards can be kinda expensive. It can be tested out cheaply by using a laptop and external keyboard -- left hand on the laptop right hand on the external keyboard. If you have a mac, I had to install karabiner to get keys from both keyboards to work in concert (e.g. to enable left shift and right 'k' to capitalize k).
Yup, I used to have a split. I looked around and decided to get a Moonlander. Couldn't get used to it, felt overly awkward and terrible for my fairly small hands.
I'm building one now using the wonderful Cosmos Keyboard Configurator [0], from the same author of the older Dactyl generator [1].
If anyone want to get into this. There's a yoga series called "Namaste Yoga", a few of the episodes are online. This style of yoga emphasizes breathing.
So if you actually do the stretching while trying to breathe in and out to the ques they give, it becomes much better and very meditative. If you really don't get the benefits of yoga, or are experiencing stress right now, you should give this series a try.
Actually might be even better if you do it after a hot bath, since your muscles are warmed up. And a darkened room.
Recently I have been doing Rajio Taiso, a calisthenic exercises that have been popularized since 1928 in Japan. This exercise believed to have helped the Japanese people have a longer and healthy life. It is just three minutes and I must say, enjoyable and communal.
My master says: If you are not relaxed, you are exercising or maybe doing something interesting but you are not doing Tai Chi. I played every sport under the sun and I found in Tai Chi a way to be "In the Zone" through gentle practice and meditation.
Taichi is very similar to isometric exercise. Basically in a lot of moves you are pushing against yourself while moving slowly in circles.
Isometric exercise, which is when you are exerting force but not moving, has been shown to be great at reducing blood pressure: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/57/20/1317
Isometric exercise involves co-contraction of muscle groups. Taichi involves the minimal contraction of muscle to produce posture and movement, and encourages maximum availability for responsive, springy movement in every joint. If you're practicing taichi, you're not exerting force against yourself. Isometric contraction is antithetical to taichi practice.
I wouldn't go so far as to say antithetical. There are lots of positions in taichi that are basically isometric exercises:
* Horse Stance (Ma Bu): This is a foundational stance in Tai Chi (and many other martial arts) that resembles a half squat. Practitioners lower their center of gravity with feet wide apart, bending the knees and keeping the spine straight. Maintaining this position requires muscle engagement similar to an isometric exercise, strengthening the legs, core, and improving balance.
* Pushing Hands (Tui Shou): This exercise involves two practitioners who work against each other's force in a controlled manner, aiming to improve sensitivity, balance, and strength. While it's more dynamic than traditional isometric exercises, it involves moments where pushing against an opponent (or yourself in solo practice) can mimic the muscle engagement of isometric training.
* Holding the Ball: This position involves standing with knees slightly bent, as if holding a large ball in front of you. This posture engages the arms, shoulders, and core muscles in a static manner, similar to an isometric hold, while also improving balance and concentration.
loughnane | 2 years ago
Results:
- SBP difference was 2.4mmHg (95%CI -4.39 to -0.41mmHg) between Tai chi and aerobic exercise.
alecco | 2 years ago
> 7 YongDingLu Community Health Care Center, Aerospace Center Hospital, Beijing, China
> 8 Traditional Chinese Medicine Department, BaiLi Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic, Beijing
> 9 Medical Department of Beijing Gulou Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, Beijing, China
hmmm
justrealist | 2 years ago
nonethewiser | 2 years ago
There are hundreds of millions of people who learned Tai Chi is something that it is not and now they're left to grapple with it.
This is superstition being exposed by the scientific method. Tai Chi is a pretend martial art that many people enjoy practicing. That doesn't make it worthless. It's a gentle exercise that isn't identical to others so it will have a somewhat unique benefit profile if you look deep enough. But the lens of science has burned away all the other bullshit and what's left is a mundane exercise with a unique cultural context. And that's fine, but hundreds of millions have yet to come to terms with that. It is difficult to have part of your worldview completely destroyed.
salad-tycoon | 2 years ago
I remember studies coming out of China saying hypnotherapy could be effective in replacing anesthesia. Then I also found out about how there are many fraudulent studies coming out of China. (1)
With 17,000 retracted studies with Chinese coauthors since 2021.
Now that’s not to say that tai chai doesn’t work, nor does it mean this is fraudulent but it does pay to learn how to read these studies with a critical eye.
https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00397-x
brodouevencode | 2 years ago
Studies like this are just click-bait.
freitzkriesler2 | 2 years ago
And I say this as someone who hates cardio.
emptybits | 2 years ago
But I agree; any other criteria that reduced the 1189 patients screened down to the final 342 is not mentioned.
nanna | 2 years ago
zaphod420 | 2 years ago
hiddencost | 2 years ago
adrian_b | 2 years ago
However it is likely that most of its techniques have been lost and only some of its training exercises converted in health-preserving exercises have been retained.
While there still are some who claim to know which were the original meanings of the movements that compose the existing Tai Chi sequences, it is likely that most, if not all, such interpretations are just modern guesses and they are not based on any surviving secret information.
adamgordonbell | 2 years ago
I assume restorative yoga, or mindfullness mediation or just "The relaxation response" would all do the same?
elbear | 2 years ago
With Tai Chi you are doing movements which contract and relax your muscles for shorter periods of time, which helps you relax. Also, the fluid movements can bring you to a state of effortlessness, which is of course also relaxing.
cachecrab | 2 years ago
kuschkufan | 2 years ago
nonethewiser | 2 years ago
beezlebroxxxxxx | 2 years ago
The contrast with "vigorous aerobic exercises" is also interesting. The study looked at
> "Aerobic exercise interventions included climbing stairs, jogging, brisk walking, and cycling. Exercise intensity in the aerobic exercise group was monitored. The maximum heart rate was estimated as 208 − (0.7 × age in years)."
which makes you wonder how much the findings compare to the well known benefits of zone-2 HR aerobic training. "Vigorous" is a bit of weird term that suggests very different things between different people. Low HR cardio is usually not considered "vigorous" at all.
Another broader question would be whether maximizing lowered blood pressure is more important than getting people doing "vigorous" aerobic exercise, which brings a whole host of important benefits along with lowering blood pressure. Most people should get a lot more aerobic exercise and use relaxation methods, but I would probably recommend aerobic exercise first.
bdsa | 2 years ago
smeej | 2 years ago
beezlebroxxxxxx | 2 years ago
dylan604 | 2 years ago
brendoelfrendo | 2 years ago
foobarian | 2 years ago
JoshTko | 2 years ago
thesz | 2 years ago
And "not thinking about anything" is exceptionally hard.
krumpet | 2 years ago
riku_iki | 2 years ago
1. You use conscious part of your mind to slowly doing isolated drills with good control and understanding of every detail. On this step conscious part controls process and unconscious part of mind is being trained by observing the drill and outcome.
2. unconscious part of mind is now trained, and you can disable conscious part which will make result better, because unconscious part is better in contoling motor functions.
cassianoleal | 2 years ago
mbivert | 2 years ago
More seriously, I can't think of a single reason as to why it could not be at least trained; there must be ways. Not that I disagree with you, far from it.
krisoft | 2 years ago
how do you know?
mbivert | 2 years ago
Nonetheless, the serious half is to be understood with a contextually reasonable definition of "thinking": "the thoughts running through the mind of an adult [when he tries to relax]". It seems fair to argue that such thoughts require a prolonged, sophisticated interaction with human society, which newborns lack.
adrian_b | 2 years ago
Of course, there is nothing magic about the Tai chi sequences and many other sequences of movements executed in a similar manner should have a similar effect.
A general stretching and mobility routine could be equivalent, but only if it would be similarly complete in exercising the whole body. Presumably the manner of executing Tai chi sequences, i.e. slowly and with appropriate respiration, matters.
The advantage of Tai chi sequences or of other sequences derived from Chinese martial arts or their Okinawan derivatives, i.e. various karate kata, is that in comparison with general stretching and mobility routines they are like reciting a poem compared to reciting a few pages memorized from a dictionary.
Such sequences of movements that have a meaning are both more pleasant to execute and easier to remember in every detail, to avoid skipping some parts.
riversflow | 2 years ago
smolder | 2 years ago
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36884118
hosh | 2 years ago
I can tell you for example, xingyiquan, baguazhang, bajiquan, wing chun, akijutsu (among many others) all (historically) share a common set of practice principles (yijinjing) with taijiquan, yet what ends up happening under the cover are vastly different. For example, at some level of practice, taijiquan is like working with a beach ball floating on water, but baguazhang is more like winding up wires in different planes of motion. Yet both share a smaller set of common principles.
Although the forms and sequences are now taught as foundations and the source of these changes, they are probably better taught as a capstone in which a practitioner builds up and constructs from primitives over the years of practice. There are some taijiquan practitioners who get into the art a lot deeper than the mainstream, and end up practicing holding specific taijiquan postures statically. (In fact, the historical taijiquan manuals shows the set of core postures, not necessarily the sequence of them).
laeri | 2 years ago
hosh | 2 years ago
There are a lot of weird capabilities that can come out of it, but those ridges are probably the most obvious effect, yet it is among least documented yet observable effect when you go searching for things about tai chi or yijinjing.
hosh | 2 years ago
DennisP | 2 years ago
Zone-2 aerobics definitely has plenty of other benefits.
ThinkBeat | 2 years ago
I disagree here.
Tai Chi is quite different from what most people will do with stretching. At least anyone I know or have seen exercising.
Just as Yoga is different than holding stretches. Both Tai Chi, Yoga, and Katas are somewhat similar, and they all incorporate stylized movements executed in particular sequences
Also, there is a part of them all to master the poses and movements and in longer sequences remembering it all and remembering corrections and more.
Ritual movements and poses perhaps.
When people stretch you know about how you do it and how to do it. It does not have the mastery and memory additions.
It does that but the discipline of what, how, how long and in what sequence separates it in practical terms.
xarope | 2 years ago
Someone posted a video below, I noticed it was a Chen practitioner, which makes sense, since I feel the Chen style is more combative and science oriented, e.g. the body is not kept upright like in the other styles, but leans in the direction of force; there's emphasis on circular movement of the body (and not just the obvious hip movement like in karate) to generate force, and distal limbs or tools are then snapped at execution to impart that force.
sebastianconcpt | 2 years ago
criddell | 2 years ago
Paper is here: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...
nonethewiser | 2 years ago
sebastianconcpt | 2 years ago
nonethewiser | 2 years ago
tanseydavid | 2 years ago
[OP] bmwolf102990 | 2 years ago
RajT88 | 2 years ago
https://tv.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/c1743b56-f791-49a9-9d22-0bd5...
[OP] bmwolf102990 | 2 years ago
yard2010 | 2 years ago
gmiller123456 | 2 years ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpsons_Already_Did_It
tshaddox | 2 years ago
RajT88 | 2 years ago
ra7 | 2 years ago
2024throwaway | 2 years ago
Everyone knows what chai tea is referring to. In the same way they understand what naan bread is.
ra7 | 2 years ago
QuercusMax | 2 years ago
delecti | 2 years ago
ra7 | 2 years ago
In India, chai specifically means tea with milk. It’s not just any “tea”. It’s fine to use, but not entirely accurate.
nkingsy | 2 years ago
delecti | 2 years ago
ra7 | 2 years ago
So the usage is all over the place.
wtmt | 2 years ago
Citation needed with the part of India referred to here.
ra7 | 2 years ago
> Masala chai is a popular beverage throughout South Asia, originating in the early modern Indian subcontinent. Chai is made by brewing black tea (usually CTC tea) in milk and water and then sweetening with sugar. Adding aromatic herbs and spices creates masala chai, although chai is often prepared unspiced.[2][3]
JoeAltmaier | 2 years ago
Still, rude to correct someone for using what's essentially a colloquialism. If enough people use a word 'wrong' then, well, that's a new usage that we can't ignore or get prescriptive about. Because prescriptive usage is from some point of view after all. The Chai tea people have their point of view, and are correct within their community.
someuser2345 | 2 years ago
kazinator | 2 years ago
I suspect that if we venture into the streets of an American city and interview random passers-by, fewer than 10% will know that "chai" is a word that already means "tea".
eindiran | 2 years ago
kazinator | 2 years ago
gowld | 2 years ago
dylan604 | 2 years ago
jsbg | 2 years ago
dylan604 | 2 years ago
jrajav | 2 years ago
neaden | 2 years ago
ra7 | 2 years ago
You might want to revisit who’s incorrect.
neaden | 2 years ago
Edit: Like in Italian Latte just means milk, but in English it means an espresso with steamed and then frothed milk on top, what would be called a cappuccino in Italy usually. Americans calling it a latte aren't wrong, they're just using a loanword to mean something different then the original language.
ra7 | 2 years ago
neaden | 2 years ago
ra7 | 2 years ago
They also sell masala chai, which is the above + spices added.
Starbucks uses chai tea and chai tea latte to mean something else.
Some grocery stores (Trader Joe's?) sell chai as just a spice mix.
So Americans aren't really using it "differently" as much as they're using it wildly inconsistently. That's not really the same as cappuccino vs latte, is it? Latte is at least used to mean the same thing across the country.
noufalibrahim | 2 years ago
mrighele | 2 years ago
[1] https://qz.com/1176962/map-how-the-word-tea-spread-over-land...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masala_chai
ra7 | 2 years ago
Masala Chai = Chai + spices (masala)
cmiller1 | 2 years ago
DrNosferatu | 2 years ago
thenobsta | 2 years ago
FrustratedMonky | 2 years ago
corysama | 2 years ago
No idea how legit it was. I've never seen tai chi presented primarily as self-defense since.
mtremsal | 2 years ago
shwaj | 2 years ago
mtremsal | 2 years ago
jtbayly | 2 years ago
It was obvious to me that the students were simply responding to what they saw the master doing. I don't believe for one second that it would have worked if the students had blindfolds on.
bunderbunder | 2 years ago
Anyway, it's usually not nearly that spectacular, but the same basic dynamic has historically pervaded many martial arts. Participants in one style typically only practice and spar with each other, and the "more advanced" techniques might only be demonstrated using advanced students who wouldn't get to be that advanced in the first place without being heavily bought into the whole thing, so you can get some almost cult-like dynamics coming into play.
livueta | 2 years ago
> Xu started a dispute with Wei on social media, beginning with a demand that Wei provide evidence of his abilities, and culminating in a bare-knuckle fight in a basement in Chengdu in 2017, where Xu won convincingly in less than 20 seconds.
ksaj | 2 years ago
renewiltord | 2 years ago
There are some ancient arts that are unbelievably powerful. We have forgotten breath techniques that allow you to survive in space and travel backwards through time. It is said that some of the great warriors of the past practised these techniques. How could David destroy Goliath? With a sling? I broke my arm once and had it in a sling. Wouldn't have helped me destroy a titan. It was martial arts.
Some say Superman wasn't just a comic book story but a real man who used these techniques. Unfortunately, he defected to the Japanese and so we had to drop an atomic bomb to stop him. Many of the unique methods were lost with him.
shwaj | 2 years ago
renewiltord | 2 years ago
tmtvl | 2 years ago
lagadu | 2 years ago
tmtvl | 2 years ago
noufalibrahim | 2 years ago
The book "Professor in the Cage" goes into this distinction at length. It's an interesting thing to consider for people like me who are into martial arts.
nandkeypull | 2 years ago
One example (Yang-style tai chi): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp2jWeaKrqI
stronglikedan | 2 years ago
nemo | 2 years ago
I've never fought anyone, but as I've been taught the moves in Tai Chi's martial technique are generally intended to put people down quickly and hard by doing things like breaking elbows, eye gouges, and other grappling intended to severely injure the other party, essentially breaking every MMA rule that would get you disqualified.
This all varies significantly depending on the teacher, my teacher studied Chinese grappling, Mongolian wrestling, Aikido, and other arts that I'm sure he brought elements in from.
leashless | 2 years ago
nemo | 2 years ago
leashless | 2 years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D5DGpORANE
I think that's a pretty good example of what "people who can actually fight well use tai chi techniques" looks like. A lot of force is going into those throws, bodies are flying, and they aren't students doing a demonstration for a crowd. Legit.
syntheticnature | 2 years ago
While some of the things he described about studying with masters had elements of the video you describe (if put less strongly), he also expressed that this was folks who had been studying for a long, long time, and moved on from the rote movements associated with Tai Chi to other aspects. He said he'd been studying awhile (at least ten years) and didn't think he could use it to defend himself.
leashless | 2 years ago
Younger kung fu people wouldn't generally be so into Tai Chi. You'd learn it as you aged so that as you became less athletic you'd be substituting smart for strong and extending your lifetime as an effective fighter. All of this context was lost when it came to the west.
Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Chengfu this is kinda what top tier tai chi people used to look like: neckless bears with fists the size of your head.
Also: weapons. In China open hand stuff is taught before you attempt the complexity of swinging round a sword but these were (and are) armed arts. Nobody shows up at a real fight without a machete or sabre I believe.
kazinator | 2 years ago
Sure, your blood pressure is not going to be low while you're doing aerobic exercise.
If you do a lot of aerobic exercise consistently, your heart will get bigger and stronger, with a lower resting rate. That will bring your pressure down. It's not uncommon for endurance athletes to feel unusually lightheaded when standing up because of the low blood pressure and slow heart rate.
amarant | 2 years ago
Both his resting pulse and blood pressure are so low a nurse examining him (for what later turned out to be allergies) once thought he was dying and brought the hospitals cardiologist running while having someone else call the heart surgeon!
I'm honestly not sure his exercise regiment is even healthy, it's a bit on the extreme side, but I doubt tai-chi can bring down anyone's blood pressure as low as his!
Tagbert | 2 years ago
thisismyhna | 2 years ago
cassianoleal | 2 years ago
As you can imagine, RSI runs big, especially on my right shoulder.
I've had many injuries over the years, tried all sorts of treatments - massages, yoga, physiotherapy, accupuncture, you name it. They all help and sometimes even heal the injuries completely but the only thing that really helps keep it healthy longer term (that I've found) is Tai Chi.
Of couse, being the lazy bastard that I am, after a period with no injuries, I stop practicing it. Until the next injury, or some time into it after I exhaust all other options and eventually get back to Tai Chi and the healing can start properly again.
thenobsta | 2 years ago
cassianoleal | 2 years ago
I'm building one now using the wonderful Cosmos Keyboard Configurator [0], from the same author of the older Dactyl generator [1].
[0] https://ryanis.cool/cosmos/
[1] https://ryanis.cool/dactyl/#manuform
dukeofdoom | 2 years ago
Actually might be even better if you do it after a hot bath, since your muscles are warmed up. And a darkened room.
Example episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edGlTd1pNi4
iamthejuan | 2 years ago
HumblyTossed | 2 years ago
javier_e06 | 2 years ago
porphyra | 2 years ago
Isometric exercise, which is when you are exerting force but not moving, has been shown to be great at reducing blood pressure: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/57/20/1317
paulrudy | 2 years ago
porphyra | 2 years ago
* Horse Stance (Ma Bu): This is a foundational stance in Tai Chi (and many other martial arts) that resembles a half squat. Practitioners lower their center of gravity with feet wide apart, bending the knees and keeping the spine straight. Maintaining this position requires muscle engagement similar to an isometric exercise, strengthening the legs, core, and improving balance.
* Pushing Hands (Tui Shou): This exercise involves two practitioners who work against each other's force in a controlled manner, aiming to improve sensitivity, balance, and strength. While it's more dynamic than traditional isometric exercises, it involves moments where pushing against an opponent (or yourself in solo practice) can mimic the muscle engagement of isometric training.
* Holding the Ball: This position involves standing with knees slightly bent, as if holding a large ball in front of you. This posture engages the arms, shoulders, and core muscles in a static manner, similar to an isometric hold, while also improving balance and concentration.
georgeburdell | 2 years ago
pedalpete | 2 years ago
However, gastro-diplomacy is a real thing!
https://www.vice.com/en/article/paxadz/the-surprising-reason...