Understanding the terminology of tai chi

When you first come into a tai chi class, the terminology can seem confusing at first – so I thought I’d explain some of the most common questions here.

What is tai chi?

Tai chi is essentially a moving meditation. It is a coming together of the mind and body with everything working together in oneness and quiescence. We are used to using parts of our body individually, and so the difficult part of tai chi is learning the coordination to use the parts of the body together – as one.

Beginners are often surprised at how difficult it feels to begin with especially if they’ve watched people do tai chi. They are also often shocked at the fact their legs might ache by the end of a lesson. Tai chi takes perseverance, dedication and practice – but don’t think you’ll ever fully achieve perfection; while we may all strive for perfection there are always things we can improve, principles we’ve missed or new things to learn about the tai chi philosophy.

Tai chi is also a way of life, rather than just something to do once or twice a week. Acknowledging that not everything is good, but also that not everything is bad. Feeling more relaxed, mindful and that you have more clarity in thought. It mixes deeply with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and the five elements’ cycles (Wu Xing). You can delve into this beautiful art, tradition and philosophy as deeply as you want, and the more of this you know, the more the tai chi as a lifestyle makes sense.

Since starting to teach tai chi in 2018, I have become calmer, more tolerant and more connected to the world around me and the continuous flow of life’s yin and yang. Yin and Yang are not always equal and balanced, but one always flows naturally into the other.

What about this ‘tai chi walking’ I keep seeing?

While the tai chi walking craze has helped introduce a lot of people into tai chi, many of the videos, apps and promises are just wild sales tactics. Many of the apps and videos are AI generated and feature basic everyday body weight exercises that have little to do with any part of tai chi. Tai chi walking IS a thing, but you’re not going to lose 15 stone by tomorrow or get a six pack – I’ve written a blog post on this which you can find here:

https://www.taichirelaxation.com/post/tai-chi-walking-the-truth-behind-the-craze

Forms

You’ll hear and see this word with or without the plural used a lot. Each individual movement can be known as a ‘posture’ or a ‘form’. A group of postures or forms chained together is a group of ‘forms’ known as various things; commonly short or long form. Sometimes these are known in their numeric terms as 24 or 108. The confusion then comes that the long (108) can be known also as 103, or other less common numbers. This is because there are often repeated postures in each set which are not counted by some people. You’ll find the same forms or postures across the forms, it’s just the sequences that vary.

Short form

Also commonly known as the Beijing 24 forms. This is not a traditional Yang family form and so is not taught by the Yang family. It was developed with the help of the Yang family in 1956 by the Chinese Sports council as a way to prevent loneliness, weight issues, to get people outside and to have a ‘national’ sport or form that could be enjoyed by many people. The short form is now the most widely practiced form in the world. It contains most of the most common traditional Yang tai chi movements in a shortened and simplified sequence, which is relatively easy to remember (in comparison to the traditional long form) and doesn’t take too long to perform at around five minutes.

Long form

The Yang family traditional long form contains 108 postures, forms or movements. These are divided into 3 sections with the first section being the shortest and the last section the longest. You can stop at the end of any of these sections and add the ‘closing form’ or continue through the next section. These are not 108 completely different movements, for example in section one there are five ‘brush knee and push’ movements (postures or forms) and two ‘play the lute’ movements. It is also not an extended version of the short form, and is a different sequence, although there are similarities, for example, single whip is often preceeded by right grasp the bird's tail and proceeded by cloud hands.

There are many ‘odd’ sounding names, but you’ll become accustomed to these with time. You’ll even quickly remember how to perform each movement (posture / form), it’s the transitions going from one movement to the next that take time and this is where the dedication to tai chi comes in, dedication to yourself and your journey; gradually learning all the things that make tai chi what it is.

Other forms

The are MANY other sequences and interesting varieties of forms. We also teach the 32 sword forms (I.E there are 32 movements or postures / forms) This is a straight sword form but is not the only one available. The one we do also varies from the traditional Yang but is potentially slightly easier.

There’re also the 10 forms (also known as 8 forms), 18 fan form, sabre form and many, many others.

The 42 competition form is a wonderful combination of the main styles of tai chi condensed into one singular sequence and this, as its name suggests, is used for competition especially by the Tai Chi Union of Great Britain.

Enjoy the journey

Enjoy the journey and the developement, enjoy realising that you might be seeing more in nature or life, you might become more mindful, more relaxed, less stressed - or you might just love that one hour of freedom from your mind and life each week. Some of you want to be more mobile, or more fit, some want to socialise - everyone has different reasons. Don't get too hung up on the terminology, it will make more sense the longer you've been doing it.

And if you get a name of a movement wrong, don't worry - there have been many amusing name alterations and before long we'll have a whole new sequence based on our new names. (most recently.... spank the monkey!)

Anyway, if you're already in class, I hope this has clarified some things for you, and if you're thinking of joining, I hope this helps your understanding prior to joining.

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R x