You don’t have to do Tai chi well to benefit from it. However, if you’re suffering from a chronic condition you do have to justify putting in all that energy to learn and maintain a Tai chi practice, instead of just walking more, or faster to feel and probably even be, better.
Read more: The Details MatterThe thing is, Tai chi is all about the details. A comparison that makes sense to me is an Olympic swimmer. Even a race like a 50 meter sprint embodies the 10,000 things. Every detail of a swimmers stroke, their breathing, every detail of their years of training. These things all count when they stand on the block of an Olympic final. Tai chi is a martial art, even if, like me, you only do it for health.
A martial artist in 19th century China had to be prepared to deal with other martial artists. People whose aim could be to maim or kill them. Which is to say the stakes were way higher than an Olympic final. Just to maintain the confidence and calm state of mind when facing that level of aggression and menace, a Tai chi practitioner needed a profound confidence, deeply grounded in the attention to every detail of their art and their training for that art. attention they had been devoting years if notdecades to.
When we do Tai chi to help improve the standard of our life with chronic health problems, we have to squarely face the facts if we let our standard slip. If we take short cuts refining our art, or practicing our art, the only person who suffers is us. To get the benefits of Tai chi it simply has to be done well, and only we can ensure that is how it’s done on our watch,