As the Healing Art:

Taichi Chuan focuses on two tangibles and two intangibles in practicing.

Two Intangibles:

1. The first is breathing. Taichi Chuan is a deep breathing exercise that optimizes your inhaling and exhaling to the maximum. The result is to oxygenize each cell of your body and keep each part of your body alive. When inhale, you breathe in deep into your bones. When exhale, you breathe out onto your skin and hair.
2. The second is meditation. Taichi Chuan is a moving meditation that puts your body and mind in perfect unison. Taichi Chuan is very slow in motion. The purpose of the slowness is to develop the keen awareness of your body and your movement. QiGong is breathing techniques plus meditation. Taichi Chuan is advanced Qigong exercise.

Two Tangibles:

1. The first is your DanTian (your core area. It means Life Essence Field). Taichi Chuan is an internal exercise that focuses working on your DanTian which consists of your reproduction organ (where the Qi coming from), your small intestine (where you get your nutrition) and colon (where you cleanse your body). In other words, Taichi Chuan is an internal organs deep massage.
2. The second is your spine. Taichi Chuan is a spine leading exercise and has specific techniques to work on your spine to have it in good shape. The key part is to open your MinMeng (your lower back or small of the back. It means Life Gate in Chinese). Taichi Chuan practitioners train themselves to be their own chiropractors. If your spine in good shape, you generally enjoy good health.

As the Martial Art:

1. Taichi Chuan is also a martial art focusing on mental strong and internal physical strong. As to mental strong, Taichi Chuan emphasizes being calm, alert and relaxed mental status.
2. As to physical strong, Taichi Chuan develops two basic martial abilities. One is rooting, the other is sensing. Rooting makes you firm in standing and sensing makes you fast in responding and capable in neutralizing incoming force.
3. Taichi Chuan used to be called shadow boxing because you play with imaginary opponent when solo practice. Each movement has its martial meaning. Each part of your body is trained to be able to use as a weapon in the real fighting. Besides solo practice, Taichi Chuan also has two-person training known as Push-Hands in that you try to sense your partner’s intention and find his weak point while concealing your intention and maintain your balance.
4. Taichi Chuan is also called Culture boxing because it is very rich in content. By learning Taichi Chuan, you also become familiar to Chinese traditional medicine, philosophy and arts of war, the wisdom of Chinese five thousand year history.

Tai chi Academy of Los Angeles