What is Tai Chi?
Tai Chi Chuan (also spelled as Tai ji or Taiji Quan) or ‘Shadow Boxing’ originates in China and is considered there to be the number one health sport. Relaxation techniques together with deep abdominal breathing are combined in this traditional Chinese martial arts form, using an extended sequence of full body movements. You can regard Tai Chi either as meditation in movement or as a type of sport.
The practitioner performs Tai Chi according to certain fundamental principles, upon which the quality of the exercise is based. Movements involve, for example, precise step sequences, opening and closing, centering, stretching and straightening the spinal column, the application of correctly combined and coordinated turning movements and shifting of the body´s weight and balance. The exercises also train the and improve balance. The practitioner´s spiritual energy becomes composed, relaxed and at ease. Thus, the Chi is activated; (see explanation under Qi Gong).
In Balansvita you will be taught Tai Chi first with empty hands and later with sword or fan.
What is Qi Gong?
Qi Gong is a series of individual health exercises following traditional Chinese medicine. Qi Gong is practiced to strengthen the ‘Qi’ life giving energy. Training the life giving Qi energy and promoting its uninhibited flow lies at the root of all health and vitality. And activating the body´s own healing powers is an important goal of this exercise. Chinese medicine uses Qi Gong to treat practically every illness with positive results.
Although the concept of Chinese medicine is based on a completely different understanding of the living organism to that of our scientifically centred medicine, nevertheless the Chinese have used their medicine to ‘map out’ and offer effective diagnoses and therapeutic treatments.
How and why these work can still only be properly explained in the language of Chinese medicine itself. Chinese medicine takes as its starting point that the flow of Qi, its quality and how it changes within us is responsible for our well being and consequently for the onset of illness in our body. Based on this understanding, the concepts of Yin and Yang are continually developed and refined. Qi is said to circulate in the body in distinctive patterns. Thus Qi is the connecting energy in the internal organs; it circulates in the body´s Meridians and plays a protective role in the body´s outer layer and all around the close perimeter of the body. In medical terms, this stabilises and supports the body´s functioning. Excellent results have been observed in chronic conditions, where western medicine has been unable to help.
The best known Qi Gong exercises are the Stork sequence and the 8 Brocades, interpreting the Taiji-Qigong art form.