Tai Chi allows me to let go.  When we can’t let go we are consumed with anxiety, fear, anger and desire. Often we don’t know it because we are it, we are consumed and unhappy. Some people darken a room when they enter and some light it up. Those that darken it are consumed by all those negative traits and can’t understand why their life is so bad. Those that lighten it have learned to let them go and are ‘awake’ to the balance of light and dark known as yin and yang – they have found balance.

If we cut ourself, we treat the injury, clean it, dress it and allow it to heal. If our emotions are hurt we can do the same or keep repeating the injury again and again. If we’re not wise to how this works and haven’t developed an emotional toolbox to deal with these problems, we are destined to keep repeating the process and get darker and more troubled inside the trap.

Tai Chi is for all abilities and ages, it physically calms me down and empowers me, good posture and good breathing is an excellent tool to release excess physical tension. The yin standing postures remind me to be kind, patient, compassionate and tolerant and the yang to have resolve, courage and determination. The qigong opens the tissue and joints flexing the spine and core and the form gives a 20 minute meditation where the mind has to remain aware, focused, sensitive and intense in a never ending spiral dance of movement. Push hands teaches me how to work with others, to be able to harmonise with both their body in movement and mind. The weapons how to blend with the inanimate and make them extensions to my body.

The martial aspect teaches me how to keep the peace, within myself in times of stress and negate the imbalance in others maintaining my dignity and protecting those around me.

Tai Chi keeps an engaged heart, it doesn’t turn away from life, it fully engages in it and enjoys the balance of a constantly moving and changing universe without trying to ‘own’ or ‘possess’ things or people, it’s an engagement of positivity and wisdom realising that joy and happiness can only exist in contrast to pain and suffering, that one creates the other in a constant spiral of yin and yang.  When we ‘try’ to happy, we can’t, it’s spontaneous, borne out of that deep wisdom that comes from a daily training regimen of ‘letting’ go of trying to own, possess, attract or push anything away.

When the body has no excess tension, neither does the mind, one is a reflection of the other, when the mind is bright it animates the body, when it is focused, sensitive and intense anything can be achieved in harmony with those around you and your environment.

Why not give Tai Chi a go?  The benefits are more far reaching than most people realise.

If you are in Medway Kent UK click on this link to find the author’s club.