What Is Tai Chi?

What Is Tai Chi?

 The term 'tai chi' is an English abbreviation of the term 'tai chi chuan'. Sometimes you see tai chi written as ‘taiji’ and tai chi chuan as ‘taijiquan’; both ways of spelling it have the same meaning and are interchangeable.

The abbreviation from tai chi chuan to tai chi is so made because the 'chuan' part means 'boxing' or 'sparring', and most practitioners tend not to focus on the martial aspect. When taken alone, the 'tai chi' part of the term has several translations. It depends on context in the same way that 'bear' does in English (we should bear in mind that there are many varieties of bear).

In the literature, we often see tai chi translated as 'grand ultimate' - hence tai chi chuan becomes 'grand ultimate boxing'. It sounds nice, but it does not really describe what the practice consists of. A more informative translation of tai chi is 'unlimited size'.

The term 'unlimited size' actually refers to a fundamental principle of tai chi: expansion. Expansion is the practice of stretching and expanding your joints, and creating space between them. Practitioners begin their studies by focusing on expanding the biggest joints: hips, shoulders, and spines.

We find that muscles around these joints are prone to a lot of physical tension, due to lifestyle habits, negative emotions, and other forms of stress, which in turn cause the joints to contract. By studying tai chi, we gradually improve our understanding of how we make expansion happen and how it feels. This is why studying tai chi provides relief from the physical effects of long term stress.

However, ‘expansion’ is a fundamental principle of tai chi for somewhat more profound reasons than this…