Tai chi in modern life

Posted on August 11th, 2009, by Peter under Exercise, Men's Exercise, Mind Power, Women's Exercise.

It’s a crazy modern World. A World of rush, pressure, high expectations and low morale but is it so different from the World of the past?

What was it like for the Egyptians serving the Pharaoh’s to build their empires and their tombs? What was it like for the Romans serving their Emperors, or the Chinese, or even the Danes or the early Anglo Saxons? O.K. they didn’t have mobile phones. They didn’t have nuts and bolts either but they achieved many amazing things. The questions are whether we’re really more pressured than they were and whether they knew more than we do about leading successful lives.

Perhaps it’s a matter of degree. Perhaps just some of them were exceptionally cool and perhaps just some of us are too. How many of us really spend more time than they did actually achieving anything? How much more time do we spend merely responding to others or agitating them to respond to us? Are we actually using our modern methods of communication to achieve more or are our gadgets simply aiding our laziness and making us more neurotic?

How did they measure achievement and how should we?

Many of the methods developed and used by people in the past to cope and find their way were lost in succeeding chaotic times. Nevertheless, the principles can still be detected in the surviving artistic legacies. Artistry was everything.

Those who were accomplished did far more than merely sustain themselves. They flourished by using artistry in their approaches to each other and the World about them. Through their arts they could support and protect their sustenance, both through the weapons and implements they produced and through the various ways by which they communicated. They used their artistry to convey what they wished and in turn detected, interpreted and measured the artistry of others. Emails and video links are still clumsy modern substitutes for the latter!

At their best, everything they did was an expression of their inner selves – the combination of their understanding, their inspiration and their skill. Others equally discerning could read all about them through their presence, their products and their actions. By working accordingly every day they gained the spirit to excel. What we may refer to as an adrenalin buzz they could regard as the norm, making them aware of gradually being closer to their soul.

Ultimately, that same approach, woven into the necessities of martial arts for preservation, led to the range of internal arts known as the grand ultimates, renowned for their amazing toning of both body and mind. In the modern World the most well known survivor is Tai Chi Chuan, spread around the Globe from its roots in China. Daily practise of the open hand movements and use of sword renews the spirit just as in the past, inspiring ways to avoid the clutter of another day and do what is worth doing.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. – Tags: Exercise, Health, mind, training