I always get these e-mails from Harvard University about how Taiji is scientifically proven to be good for health and other things.

I always find it amusing. I Practice Taiji often.

Every once in a while I share some of their "info" with folks.

What's most interesting to me is I wonder how they proved anything about Taiji? I seriously doubt the people publishing the info mastered the art. 

The art is an internal art, about an inward journey. The terms sound metaphysical, but really they are only way to talk about it clearly. Even to use words to talk about the internal aspect of your practice will teach you about the limit of words.

The Tao begins with an idea about words that is very different from the one in John that states "In the beginning was the word." To paraphrase, the Tao says that the Tao that can be spoken of is not the original Tao, and the names that can be given are not original names. In essence talking about the internal nature of a Taiji practice makes this obvious. One can not show the depth and complexity of experience with mere words. 

The longer one practices Taiji the more they find.

Whatever they are doing, they have done before

But the practice begins to teach one how to become

More aware of the differences in the same action. 

I know part of the answer to how Harvard proved something about Taiji. They used instruments and tests to verify a set of results they could measure in terms of the body's functions.

The art is much more than that. I wonder how many years the folks practiced who did the tests?

Last I checked the West still hasn't really verified meridian lines and chi. Chinese Science is different from Western science. I am by no means an expert; but it is different. More in tune with wholeness. Its not really fair. The culture has been around a long time.

I guess that's the other thing about Western Science and proof. One has to have survived the onslaught of the conquering to have anything left. The West seems good at converting a "lost culture" destroyed by the imbalance produced by the conquering into an anthropological study.

Such studies always seem fascinating. They are like trips through ancient ruins. Taiji is the opposite. Alive and well. Maybe that's it. Its existence itself is proof of something that needs no proof.

I often stand in awe of the creators and am thankful they created the art.

With that said, one of the greatest benefits of the practice is a reorientation to what science is outside of the West. In China, a teacher I worked with, explained the work of kong zi, also known as Confucius is about society, and the Tao is science.

Taiji helped me understand his comment. I continue to read the Tao, but it has taken me a while to even begin to get at the practicality of it. Some of it is like the commercial years ago that said ancient Chinese secret. When I teach my students the Tao Teh Ching at Bowie, they find it hard to understand most of what is said. Maybe they don't understand it, the same way they don't understand science and math. Perhaps. It reads like riddles and philosophy.

The Tao say the smart man/woman learns something everyday, but the sage loses/forgets something everyday. I've found it essential to practice forgetting/losing my mind when practicing. Folks say stay in the moment. One of the best things about a Taiji practice is you can actually see how remembering yesterday or some other practice session causes a decline in your vital energy. Once you feel that decline, you stop trying to remember and learn how to remove the energy attached to that effort and channel it into your practice. I am sure most athletes who perform at high levels use the same cognitive method to increase their performance. We may know this, but a Taiji practice demands this.

But my friend in China stated Taoism was science. I would call Taiji the science of wholeness and mindfulness presented in forms and movement that allow the practitioner to experience the integration of body and mind, to better understand spirit. Fancy definition, but one that at least gives sense of science.

It is impossible to imagine those who created the art did not intimately understand gravity. Again, the Newton discovery occurs just after the development of the art. If we think about the question of proof, this is important. Taiji energy is internal proof of gravity. Newton's "discovery gets at external applications for the "proven" force.

Taiji's claims and benefits are lofty; but not gospel. The art ain't for everybody. Most of the people I know who study it, have been transformed by some form of trauma that Taiji practice helps to decode. In other words, for many people, the preparation for the difficult task can be found in some difficulty faced that has been hard to manage. The practice serves to guide them towards a more integrated mind, body, and spirit, because they imagine a more integrated wholeness will resolve some specific issue. 

But the practice changes you. What I find most difficult is the idea that feeling tension is related to the presence of power. My particular issues may be related to my own trauma. I always imagined tension as a power or a way to feel. In Taiji relaxation is paramount. One learns they can always relax more.

But the tension relates to muscles. Taiji is all about the proper tension that comes from connecting the whole body together so that ones center is capable of controlling the whole body. In order to do this, the body must be relaxed.  One learns that centering is an art that is perfected through practice.  One learns that to do it properly requires coordination of body and mind.  

I often say the art is fool proof. When folks look at it and say that it is nothing, the nothing is Taoist perfect. Much of it is so simple, with the natural lines of the body preserved, it is easy to imagine the person doing it, is doing something so easy that it requires no effort.

I often call this deceptive simplicity, which is a feature of Chinese culture and science.  Working across the natural lines of the body and refining internal energy is a way of integrating thought with the science of the amazing complex body we live in.