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Yield and overcome," wrote Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism.
"Bend and be straight."
Those seeming paradoxes embody Tai Chi Chuan, a moving
meditation associated with ancient Eastern philosophy but
embraced by many modern Westerners.
"What first attracted me to it was the movement," says Mary
Ann Stephenson, who has studied Tai Chi for 10 years and
taught it for two.
"Tai Chi absolutely requires that your mind is in your
body, so it combines mind, body and spirit. Whereas in a lot
of Western-style exercise, our mind is anywhere else: wearing
headsets, reading magazines."
"What it's about is trying to have a balance between yin
(passive, feminine) and yang (active, masculine)," says
Marilyn Heidrick, an acupuncturist and teacher at the Denver
Tai Chi Academy.
Like acupuncture, Tai Chi aims to keep the body's energy or
chi flowing.
"The Chinese believe movement equals health," Stephenson
says. "To have movement in your body and your energy
throughout your life prevents stagnation. Also in your mind
and your thinking - your thinking can become very inflexible
and rigid and stagnant."
Deceptive appearance
From the outside, Tai Chi looks deceptively easy. Just 13
original postures form the basis of the practice, but there
are a five major styles and hundreds of exercises within the
various movements. Each bears a poetic name that often
reflects the Taoist principles of yielding, centeredness and
appreciation of nature: Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain;
Cloud Hands; Wind Sweeps the Plum Blossoms.
But the slow, graceful movements require
both practice and focus.
"What makes anything meditation is mindfulness," Heidrick
says. "You're attending to the motion. You have to keep
attending to where you're at."
The mental focus is one reason Tai Chi holds such appeal
for older adults, says Joseph Brady, a faculty member at the
University of Denver's Institute of Gerontology. Research
indicates that a strong, active mind is less susceptible to
Alzheimer's disease, Brady says. And while most mnemonic
exercises are purely intellectual, "with Tai Chi they're
getting the benefit of physical activity and, at the same
time, cultivating the mind."
Seniors often come to Tai Chi because it improves balance,
says Brady, who, with his wife, Jacqui Shumway, runs the
Living Younger Longer Institute. But the practice also
increases muscular strength and bone density, enhances spinal
health and provides moderate aerobic exercise.
Younger adults often take up Tai Chi to help them cope with
stress. "We all do fine when we're lying on the floor with the
lights out, listening to soothing music." Shumway notes. "The
question is, can we do that when we're in the middle of a
stressful meeting, and maybe even fighting for something we
care about?
"What Tai Chi does is help you draw back enough to say,
'What are the battles I need to fight?' Tai Chi teaches you to
stay grounded in other words, to know where you stand when
there are forces pressed against you."
Shumway, who stands nearly 6 feet tall, says Tai Chi helped
her overcome her own gangly discomfort and become centered in
her body. "You learn these two terms - graceful power or
powerful grace," she says.
"We believe that Tai Chi is the fastest way to teach people
to take control of their lives, by teaching them how to be in
control of their bodies." And that's inseparable from being in
control of their minds, Heidrick says.
"You're trying to train the energy, train the mind," she
says.
"There's this thought in Tai Chi that the mind leads the
energy leads the body. You don't want to just be doing this
physical movement. You're following the energy. It's like
being in the ocean: The wave comes in and the body moves; the
wave goes out and the body moves."
That mind/energy/body synthesis also undergirds Falun Gong
or Falun Dafa, an advanced self-cultivation philosophy that
incorporates elements of Taoist and Buddhist thought along
with five exercises.
Founded in 1992 by Li Hongzhi, Falun Gong has won millions
of followers and made one powerful enemy; the Chinese
government banned the spiritual movement in April 1999.
Universal principle
Practitioners believe in the ancient Oriental tradition of
body-mind-spirit development, and seek to follow the universal
principle of ZhenShan-Ren (truth, compassion and forbearance),
says Jian Tang, who serves as a Denver-area contact for people
interested in Falun Gong.
The five movements - four standing and one sitting - are
simple, natural, slow and smooth. Like Tai Chi, they work to
enhance the flow of positive energy within the body, Tang
says.
"Falun Gong practitioners cultivate the mind," Tang says.
"If we have a sick body, we cannot cultivate to a high level.
So the first step is that the body will be purified."
The Highlands Ranch computer programmer likes to practice
an hour a day; doing all five exercises in sequence is best,
she says. "But it's designed for busy, modern people, and is
very flexible, so if you have a half-hour, you can just choose
one or do all of them."
While some people practice Falun Gong at home alone, many
come together to learn from one another and enjoy the group's
energy, Tang says. "When I practice Falun Gong, I can feel the
energy field around me."
Stephenson knows the feeling from Tai Chi.
"In addition to it being a physical movement, you are
moving the energy through your body in a particular way," she
says. It's a very subtle movement but very grounding."
