Choosing a tai chi style that suits you

There was a comment over at wuijimon’s on how different tai chi style may suit different kinds of people. This may be caused by different character, different body structure, different goals etc. I’m bow-legged and so I can’t exactly keep the knees directly on top of the toes. It’ll will always be leaning inwards, but it feels right because the kua is relaxed (read Tai Ji is a pain in the knee) and the posture feels strong. The direction of the knee is still in the direction of the toes.

So different body structure may merit different styles, but probably more so on personalised ways of doing the same style. Tai Ji is an internal martial art after all, so although the expression can be different, the inner quality is the same – relax, relax, relax!

However, instead of looking for a style that suits me, I find myself enjoying each style depending on the inner state of mind! When feeling more energetic, Chen style. When feeling more graceful, Yang style. When feeling very calm, Sun style. It also works the other way, i.e. different style will make me FEEL differently. I hope this is not a case of multiple personality disorder! :D

I guess what I’m tying to say is not to be fixated on any styles. Certain style will suit you at certain point in your life. And certain styles are only available to you at certain point in life! This is certainly the case for me where I didn’t exactly choose which style to start off tai chi with, but just joined a local class and learnt whatever the teacher was teaching at that time (which happened to be Wu style for my introduction into Tai Ji!).

Just keep an open mind. A particular Tai Chi style may choose you instead of you choosing a Tai Chi style!

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2 Comments

  1. Posted January 19, 2007 at 8:41 am | Permalink

    I like how you mentioned enjoying styles based on current state of mind. There are times when I feel like just chillin and doing yang. Other times, I have that badda$$ mentality and wanna do some chen. Then sometimes I take a laid back approach and do my chen like yang… It’s so hard to keep chen off the mind.. maybe that’s a sign :)

  2. zenmindsword
    Posted January 25, 2007 at 10:16 am | Permalink

    hey wujimon, in the light of what you have seen now would you still agree with what you wrote above? :-)

    want energetic? – do yang; its more energetic than any chen out there

    want calm? – do yang; its calmer than any other taiji out there

    but then i don’t blame shanglee for looking at it differently since our reference point for taiji is entirely different :-)

    i only know that doing yang style allows me to experience and understand the taiji classics. would you say the same is true for whichever style you do? ha, ha……food for thought since all taiji is supposed to lead to the same destination. does it really?

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  1. [...] i first realised the shape of my legs (see bow-legged article in “Choosing a tai chi style that suits you“), i had to change my perception of what’s correct. Recently, i found another body [...]

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