Tai Chi Chuan: Five components

Tai Chi Chuan is a Chinese martial art, often classified as an "internal" or "soft" one. This means it's practitioners avoid using brute strength but instead try to use bodyweight and refined technique to become more efficient. Additionally it gives an emphasis on slow, flowing movements. When you ask most people about Tai Chi, the image they get is one of a group of people doing slow-motion exercise, somewhere in a park. Though this type of practice is an integral part of the art, there is much more to it. Traditional Tai Chi Chuan consists of the following five components:

1) Hand Form.
This is the best know of the five components. It is a series of non-stop movements, performed very slowly. The health benefits which attract so many people are mental stress-release, physical relaxation and flexibility, improved respiration and aerobic conditioning. The martial value is found in improved coordination, balance, and focus.

2) Pushing Hands.
Pushing Hands is a series of partner exercises that teach you how to take away the opponents balance and become sensitive to his actions. It is considered to be the link from the Hand Form to learning self defence.

3) Self-defence.
Mostly derived from the hand form, we practice techniques that allow us to defend ourselves. The emphasis is on body evasion combined with footwork, not contesting the attacker's power and using the whole body when countering.

4) Nei Kung. (Internal Strength).
This is a series of 24 exercises that are designed to increase energy, strength, endurance and concentration. They have conditioning and therapeutic effects as well as self-defence applications

5) Weapons:
The three weapons of Tai Chi Chuan are Sabre, Spear and Sword. We teach not only the form for each weapon, but also the practical applications of the techniques it contains.

All five aspects are equally important in our curriculum. It is our opinion that learning and training these as a combined whole yields better results than focussing on only one or two of them. This makes us emphasize the practical and applicable side of the art to a much higher degree than in most Tai Chi schools.