• AS A DEFINITION
• AS FOR THE NAME: TAI-CHI CHUAN OR TAIJIQUAN
• INTRODUCTION
• THE FORM
• THE CHARACTERISTICS OF TAI CHI CHUAN
• THE TAI CHI CHUAN STYLES
• PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPTS WHICH SUSTAIN THE TAI-CHI CHUAN THEORY
• TAOÍSM AND THE ORIGIN OF TAI CHI CHUAN
• THE CHI (QI)
• THE TAN-TIEN (or dan tian)
• INTERNAL MARTIAL ARTS
• NEI-GONG
• QIN-NA
• TUI-SHOU

  
  

THE CHI (QI)

The Chinese character for ´´qi´´ This is a difficult term to translate as we do not have a real equivalence in the West. However, in China it is very common. The word ´´qi´´ is in itself rather ambiguous and includes various concepts, like for example, the respiration; what the food would correspond to in terms of the nutrients; the air is also called ´´qi´´; the energy, etc.

It also has various meanings, some of them are: gas, air, smell, respiration, breath, spirit, moral, airs, manners. It has been translated to vital energy, vital force, bioelectricity, the breath of life etc. Without ´´qi´´ there is no life.

The tradition Chinese medicine is based on qi and its circulation through the meridians for curing illnesses. We could understand it as a vital energy as it maintains us living and the absence of the illnesses depends on the correct circulation of ´´qi´´. It is explained in a wide extent that when there is a trauma, the ´´qi´´ can be blocked and generate an illness. All of us have ´´qi´´ but not all of us have the ability to detect it. In the same way, the majority of us is not capable of detecting the flow of our blood, but there is no doubt that it flows! The ´´qi´´ can be manifested through the ticklish feeling, creepy feeling, heat, intensity etc. There are many sensations that can be expressed. I am tempted to say that it is whatever feeling that connects us to the vital impulse that maintains us alive. One sensation that is more or less fulfilling and intense which makes us feel life internally and makes us feel that we have hands, for example, or we have feet or there is something that runs in our body from the top to the bottom, something that moves, sometimes by itself, sometimes because we direct it. The ´´qi´´ is exactly the intense, fulfilling, powerful and ´´happy´´ feeling that we are alive– and note it! The ideal in tai-chi chuan is to manage the ´´qi´´ that comes from ´´tan-tien´´.