Practicing Tai Chi does not directly cure diseases, but it can indirectly cure many chronic diseases.
1，Practicing Tai Chi can improve cardiopulmonary function.
When my student came to Glacier Park to learn Tai Chi after her retirement in 1995, she did not go out after September of the first year. She said that she would cough and breathe unsmoothly whenever there was a cool breeze. She did not come out to practice Tai Chi until after May Day of the second year. So I taught her the breathing essentials of practicing Tai Chi, which enhanced her lung function. In the winter of the second year, she did not take a leave. She is now 82 years old and in very good health.
This shows that practicing Tai Chi can increase the gas capacity of the chest cavity and increase the number of oxygen inhalation and carbon exhalation, ensuring that the gas can be fully exchanged, and relatively increasing the oxygen intake of various organs. Because Tai Chi is practiced for a long time, this aerobic activity can train and improve cardiopulmonary function, and can gradually recover from chronic cardiovascular diseases.
I am also a good example. In 1992, I was diagnosed with a serious heart disease and had to go to the hospital for regular checkups. The doctor asked me to carry medicine with me just in case. I practiced Tai Chi for a long time, which made me feel happy and relieved my palpitations.
2, Practicing Tai Chi can strengthen the digestive system and improve immunity.
People who practice Tai Chi have a better appetite but do not gain weight. Why? First, when practicing Tai Chi, people are calm and relaxed, and their tongues touch the palate, which enhances the secretion function of the digestive glands, promotes regular gastrointestinal peristalsis, and increases appetite; second, when practicing Tai Chi, the Dantian should be driven to increase the number of gastrointestinal peristalsis; third, people who often practice Tai Chi consume one-third more calories per day than those who do not practice Tai Chi. Therefore, people who practice Tai Chi eat more and have better digestive function, which can enhance the elasticity of the internal organs and strengthen the digestive system.
3,Practicing Tai Chi can achieve a mediation and healing effect on insomnia and neurasthenia.
Many students came to learn boxing and said to me: “Teacher Liang, can learning Tai Chi cure neurasthenia?” I answered with certainty: “Yes, it’s fine if you practice well.” People with symptoms of neurasthenia are generally under great pressure from society, work, life, and family. The brain is constantly thinking about problems. Overwork and overexcitement can cause insomnia, which is called autonomic nervous system disorder and imbalance in medicine. Practicing Tai Chi can make the disordered nerves coordinated and balanced.
Because Tai Chi requires “quietness”, concentration of thoughts, concentration of spirit, elimination of distracting thoughts, and only thinking about boxing, the mind is highly concentrated. On the other hand, the activity increases physical fatigue, and gradually sleep becomes normal. Some students told me: “Practice boxing again before going to bed, and fall asleep faster than a fairy; the mood is good and there are no dreams, and it is easy to work.” This is the distinct effect of practicing Tai Chi.
4, practicing Tai Chi can not only cure neurasthenia, but also play a good role in the recovery of hypertension.
Generally, hypertension is accompanied by heart disease, which belongs to the circulatory system. Most of this disease is caused by mental factors. Because spirit and emotion are a kind of psychological change of people, when you are in a good mood, all functions of the body are in a coordinated state. When you are in a bad mood, your blood pressure will rise immediately. This “mental factor” is difficult to obtain from drugs. But it can be obtained in boxing activities. This disease requires the patient to be “calm” and the environment to be “quiet”. Similarly, boxing also requires the practitioner to be “calm” and “relaxed” and the environment to be “quiet”. The two are unified in “quiet”.
If the qi sinks into the dantian, the qi and blood are more comfortable and the brain is more clear. In particular, the head is straight and the neck is straight, and all parts of the body are naturally stretched. Psychologically, you always keep a quiet state. After practicing boxing, you will feel very relaxed and happy, and your blood pressure will be stable.
5, Practicing Tai Chi can dredge the meridians, smooth the blood and qi of the vascular and lymphatic circulation system, and strengthen immunity.
Slow practice of Tai Chi is a live pile. While practicing slowly, you are required to “be upright and comfortable, calm your mind and body, and sink your qi into Dantian”. These twelve words summarize the basic requirements for us in the process of practicing Tai Chi. Slow practice first requires your boxing posture, and then you have a sense of selflessness. At this time, the practice does not add any thoughts. The intention, qi, and strength in the body reach a three-in-one, forming internal strength, which is what we usually call “internal three-in-one”. Long-term slow practice of Tai Chi can continuously replenish oxygen and promote the smooth flow of blood and qi in the body.
Through slow practice of Tai Chi, especially low-frame exercises, the arteries are squeezed and relaxed to a certain extent, which can accelerate the blood flow, increase the supply of oxygen, and promote the metabolism of the lymphatic system, and strengthen personal resistance.
6, Tai Chi has a maintenance effect on the knees.
At present, some people in society believe that Tai Chi hurts the knees. I have proved that this statement is not entirely correct through decades of practicing and teaching boxing. Many people who do not practice Tai Chi also have knee pain, and the pain is getting younger and younger. First, these people do not pay attention to the regularity of activities; second, they do not pay attention to calcium supplementation (Chinese traditional medicine advocates that people should pay attention to calcium supplementation after the age of 30). Third, the cause of knee pain is the wrong exercise method. Knee pain has nothing to do with Tai Chi, but daily lifestyle and exercise methods are not adapted to one’s own body, or excessive exercise, too intense, and the load-bearing pressure suddenly increases several times, which will cause damage to the knee. Practicing Tai Chi does not hurt the knees under normal circumstances, and it should have a certain maintenance effect on the knees.
In October 2011, I accepted a student. It was her brother who helped her to come to Rending Lake to find me. I was curious about her young age but inconvenient to move. According to her, she used to be a basketball player. After her knee injury, she went to all major hospitals but could not be cured. In severe cases, she might not be able to move. She said: “My brother worked abroad and learned the old form of Chen-style Tai Chi from Master Ma Hong’s students. He benefited a lot from it and came back to China to persuade me to learn Chen-style Tai Chi. He also contacted Master Ma Hong, and he asked us to find you.” I was very moved after hearing this, so I accepted her. Her name is Hao Jianping. Hao Jianping was very obedient because she wanted to recover her health immediately. Every day she followed what I taught her, and she had to do the correct stretching, moisturizing and nourishing training before practicing Tai Chi.
Now she can not only walk, but also do difficult movements such as jumping through the body very well. She is very happy now. She said: “Tai Chi cured my legs and allowed me to return to a normal life.”
Practicing Tai Chi has the magical effect of cultivating sentiment, replenishing energy, and obtaining spiritual benefits.
1, Practicing Tai Chi can promote physical and mental health.
The inside and outside are consistent, which is called the coordination of heart and strength. If the heart is to hide and the action is to show, the heart is to express and the action is to suppress, then the strength has not yet acted on the outside, and more than half of it has been consumed inside, which is absolutely not good for the body. In the process of practicing Tai Chi, it is emphasized that the mind is calm and the body is relaxed, and the qi, intention, and strength are united and quiet. Long-term such exercise affects life and work in the subconscious, and plays a good regulating role on the body at all times.
2, Practicing Tai Chi can replenish the acquired essence, qi, and spirit.
Chen Tai Chi is an internal martial art. It practices both dynamic and static skills, seeks both inside and outside, and cultivates both sex and life. It takes the mind and intention to move qi as the rule, and seeks both inside and outside as the purpose. Through practicing Tai Chi, the body can relax, the mind can be empty and quiet, and the potential in the body is gradually trained into essence, qi, and spirit, which makes up for the lack of essence, qi, and spirit that are constantly consumed in life and work. Practicing Tai Chi every day makes you energetic in life, energetic at work, energetic, tireless, and your legs feel relaxed when walking.
3, Feel the beauty of self-intoxication in the process of practicing Tai Chi.
Master Ma Hong, my mentor, gave a high-level summary of Tai Chi with only twelve words: it has the functions of “artistic, ornamental, fitness, and practicality”. Long-term practice of traditional Chen-style Tai Chi can achieve the purpose of “cultivating the body and mind, and prolonging life”.
Precisely because Tai Chi has such a magical effect, it requires all of us Tai Chi inheritors to practice and pass on the traditional Chinese culture left by our ancestors—the magical Tai Chi. Good things should be carried forward and passed on in their original form, so as to make due contributions to people who love Tai Chi and to society.