Tai chi or tai chi chuan is an ancient Chinese art of body movements which tries to cultivate our internal energy known as “chi”. Tai chi helps us to harmonize our body, mind and spirit through some soft relaxed movements. If you look at a group practicing tai chi, it will appear to you as if these are rhythmic movements practiced in a continuous flow.
With the help of tai chi our mind and body becomes calm, revitalized, confident and strong. Since tai chi is a soft relaxed form of exercise, it does not need strength or flexibility of your body. That is why it is practiced by both old and young people and people of all sexes. With little practice tai chi helps you to relax and overcome the stress and the strain of our modern day life.
It helps some medical conditions like respiratory and digestive disorders, gives strength to our muscles and improves our posture and our balance. The movements practiced through tai chi are smooth, graceful, gentle and continuous. But the body is held straight.
Tai chi has become very popular for people suffering from osteoarthritis. It helps us to strength our muscles, correct our postures and give flexibility and mobility to our body. On one hand it teaches you to relax your mind on the other hand it harmonizes your nervous system and skeletal muscles.
Tai chi is helpful for aged people as it helps them to gain balance and it also strengthens their muscles. It reduces the number of falls due to old age and so reduces the chances of broken bones. It also increases the heart rate.
If you practice tai chi for twenty minutes everyday, it is going to strengthen your immune system by increasing both T-cells and H-cells which helps us to fight diseases. Tai chi has swaying movements which helps to improve our balance, ease the pain of arthritis and increases our blood circulation. Tai chi helps patients suffering from slow movement of Parkinson’s disease, tremors, stiffness and so on.
Because this form of exercises is usually done by people within a group, you get the perfect chance to mingle around a little. The practice of tai chi is itself a form of meditation which brings back our inner balance and soothes our nervous system. Since the practitioners concentrate very hard to do the tai chi movements, they are not distracted by external environments.
