What is Tai Chi Chuan? 

            Tai Chi Chuan (Taijiquan) is one of the principal internal martial arts of China. Internal or ‘soft’ martial arts stand in contrast to the external arts more familiar to the general public (in China these are the various Shaolin styles).  Tai Chi is a fighting system that relies predominantly on internal energy (qi) rather than muscular force. The emblem of Tai Chi is the yin-yang symbol of Taoism.  The circle of interlocking swirls, white and black, represents essential polarities that lie intermixed to different degrees in all beings, e.g. male-female, hard-soft, fast-slow, substantial-insubstantial. This balance of opposites is reflected in the physical principles of Tai Chi.  Tai Chi practice involves forms (empty hand and weapons forms, both fast and slow), drills, applications, and sparring (called Push Hands).  Most of your early practice will involve learning the Yang-style Long Form, which our school calls ‘Slow Set’.