I teach a biomechanical approach to Tai Chi in plain English.

 

I use a modern understanding of anatomy and physiology and a classical understanding of Chinese medicine to make sense of Yang Cheng Fu Style Tai Chi as it was taught by Yang Cheng Fu to his second son, Yang Zhen Ji. In this approach, I use Tai Chi to isolate chains of connective tissue as part of mechanisms that functionally connect, integrate, and strengthen the body. In this process, joints of the body are aligned and lightly stretched open enabling greater blood flow and cellular metabolism throughout the body. This 'stretching' is no simple hyperextension but, rather, a reduction in joint compression. Joints are strengthened, loosened, integrated and made more elastic. Integrating joints with large sheets of connective tissue, bodyweight is directed smoothly through the body and down to the ground. The immediate effect of correct Tai Chi practice is to engender integrated, pliable, elastic and unstuck soft tissue that allows gravity's pull, our bodyweight, to avoid getting stuck in the various spirals of tension-compression relationships that mediate the path from the top of your head to the soles of your feet.

 

As this happens, the web-like network of deep fascia (the tough white stuff on the edge of meat, collagen-based connective tissue) that integrates muscular tension and makes physical movement, is evenly pulled out. The bed of deep-fascia in a living being is like like putty, or like an ocean of viscous liquids. The deeper you go, the more viscose it is. This bed of deep-fascia often feels a bit like wax-earplugs or blue-tac; it responds most to a very gradual, even pressure. Correct Tai Chi practice creates movement around orthopaedic principles in the deep-fascia bed that slowly reconstructs the body's shape around those orthopaedic principles. Injury becomes less likely and sports performance is increased.  

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Deep fascia responds to the pressures we put on it throughout the day and throughout our lives. Posture is stored in the deep fascia of our bodies. Trauma (be it physical trauma from injury or emotional trauma from the stresses of life) changes the shape of the deep fascia in our bodies causing parts to thicken and ‘snags’ to occur. As we subconsciously redistribute weight around the traumas that our body/mind encounters in the process of avoiding pain, our deep fascia responds. Whilst it takes longer to respond to pressure and grow than muscle fibre, we can influence its shape, thickness and elasticity. Changing the shape and thickness of deep-fascia fundamentally changes our relationship with gravity. Bone and blood are both connective tissues, Tai Chi has been proven to increase bone density and reduce high blood pressure.  

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I use exercises taken from Tai Chi to realign postural misalignment in my patients as part of an integrative strategy to treat and prevent disease. I also teach the entire Yang style Tai Chi form as well as pushing hands individually and to groups of students who wish to practice it for a whole host of different reasons.

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Read more about Tai Chi and spirals or listen to an episode of Critical Mind, Embodied Spirit where I've explored Tai Chi, Qigong, Qi and other related subjects.