Tai Chi and Health

Many of our modern sports exercises can be detrimental to a person’s complete health. Many soccer players have repetitive stress injuries to their legs and knees.  Tennis players, have similar damage to their wrists, and weight lifters usually experience sever pain in their backs and waists. The more an individual practices a strenuous activity, the more likely they are to experience damage to their bodies. Many professional athletes have so many injuries that they require intensive care even in their mid-life stage. Such examples are common and widespread.  Human exercise can be divided into two basic categories:  activities that burn energy and require a kind of “cost” in the form of energy and muscle power, and activities that are restorative, which reinvigorate and energize.   We’ve already described the types of activities that bring only wear and tear to your body. So how do we engage in exercise that restores and rejuvenates?

 

Traditional Zhao Bao Taichi Theory

Methods of Practicing Zhaobao Taichi Kungfu

If you are a beginner in taichi, it is important for you to pay attention to the direction you are facing with each movement you make.  Knowing in which direction to move or turn is the foundation of taichi.

If you practice taichi and you are careless or restless, or your mind is not focused, or your eyes do not know where your hands are, or your hand movements are not connected with your foot movements, then you are practicing taichi blindly.
 

Traditional Zhao Bao Taichi Theory

The Fighting Techniques of Zhaobao Taichi Kungfu 

 

Zhaobao Taichi kungfu is a school of taichi that combines three techniques in one.  These three techniques are movements, push-hands, and san shou.  The techniques are designed for health development, fighting, and self-defense.  The movements are the foundation for health, and fighting and self-defense are further purposes.

The Five Primary Elements and the Eight Body Maneuvers of Zhaobao Taichi

Although the five primary elements of traditional Chinese medicine and philosophy are metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, Zhaobao Taichi also refers to its five basic fighting techniques as the five primary elements.  They are: zhan , rào, bei, jìn, jí.  Applying these five primary elements is the fundamental principle of combat strategy.

Traditional Zhao Bao Taichi Theory

The Five Skill Levels of Zhaobao Taichi Kungfu  

 

Zhaobao Taichi’s movements are not only artistic exercises for health and effective self-defense skills, but also a way of expressing the essence of traditional culture and philosophy through body movement. 

Ten Zhao Bao Taichi Theory

Tenth Essential Theory

Hard and Soft

The basis of the application of tai chi is how you move your energy inside your body and how you apply that energy outside your body.  The energy inside your body may be fierce or gentle, and the energy your apply outside your body may be hard or soft.

Ten Zhao Bao Taichi Theory

Ninth Essential Theory

Techniques of Stepping

In combat, you change the movement of your hands according to the situation.  But the movements of your feet go together with the movements of your hands.

 

Ten Zhao Bao Taichi Theory

Eighth Essential Theory

Eight Body Maneuvers

The keys to winning in combat are the observation of your eyes and the flexibility of your mind for changing your position.

Ten Zhao Bao Taichi Theory

Seventh Essential Theory

Seven Active Movements

When you move your hands, the energy gathers in your wrists.  Because energy comes from your waist, if you do not move your waist, you will not have full energy in your hands.  So it is necessary for you to move your waist.

Ten Zhao Bao Taichi Theory

Sixth Essential Theory

Six Connections

When practicing taichi, the body binds all parts together into one, and there is only one energy behind them.  Connected parts move together.