The Art of Tai Chi [antikvár]

Introduction: What is Tai Chi Chuan? Everyone has seen movement in slow motion. When you see a film showing action slowed down, several things happen. One is that you can see more clearly what is taking place, and another is that sometimes the film sequence appears more dramatic. Tai Chi Chuan, usually abbreviated to Tai Chi or Taiji, is movement in slow motion. When you do Tai Chi, you slow down, you can see more clearly how you are moving, and you feel that you are in the picture. You are not being swept along by the rapids of ordinary, daily life, but entering a different time scale, and calmer, more placid waters. Life itseir^eemi~W~sI(5w~do and you have an opportunity to experience your own body in motion: relaxed, evenly spaced, more rooted to the ground, natural, unhurried. Sounds good? Then read on, and be led into this different world, created and sustained by centuries of dedication by the people of China. China always was and still largely is an agricultural society. Most of the population worked the land, prayed for rain, witnessed the coming and going of the seasons, and were in general close to nature, as the saying goes. Many of their ideas, philosophical outlooks, patterns of behaviour, much of their cultural heritage in fact, are derived from observations and experiences of the natural world. As more and more of the people in our times have moved into the cities, grown up and been educated in the cities, this contact with the natural world has become very weak and sporadic. We do call for 'green' reforms, for a reduction in pollution and so forth, but the basis for our concerns is information fed to us by the media. We do not hve in the countryside; we do not experience it directly. So if a rurally