So what has this got to do with Tai Chi?
When you start serious Tai Chi training, you'll spend the first few years discovering that you've been programmed since early childhood to move in a certain way:
from the outside in.
It's a very powerful way to move. It allows us control our bodies consciously from 'control central' in the brain, and to use tools, from hammers to computers, with great skill and precision. But it has one drawback: it separates body from mind, and turns us into machines. There is an alternative way to move:
from the inside out.
That's the natural way to move. That's how animals move. That's how kids move. But we've forgotten how. Or rather, we've been programmed to move another way; we've been programmed to forget what we once knew, what once came naturally. Tai Chi is about regaining that natural movement, its strength, grace, power, and balance. All you have to do, like the guy in the video above, is let go of your old programming. Like riding the Backwards Brain Bicycle, it sounds easy—as easy as riding a bike. But in fact it takes persistence and discipline, as well as guidance and coaching. A good practice community is also important. That's what we provide here at the Academy in both our Qigong and Tai Chi classes.
Tai Chi is the art and science of returning to the natural body:
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