I used to go to a Tai Chi class (I stopped only because I decided I’d taken it as far as I was going to), and the instructor, who never touted “chi” as anything more than a metaphor or a useful visualisation, said this about the internal arts:
In the old days (that would be pre-revolutionary China) you wouldn’t practice just Tai Chi, or begin with Tai Chi. Tai Chi was the equivalent of postgraduate study in the martial arts. You would start out by learning two or three “hard”, “external” styles. Then, having reached black belt in those, and having developed your power, speed, strength, and fighting spirit, you would study the internal arts, which would teach you the proper alignments and structures, the meaning of the various movements and forms. In the class there were two students who did Gojuryu karate, a 3rd dan and a 5th dan, and they both said that their karate had improved no end since taking up Tai Chi.
Which is not to say that Tai Chi isn’t useful on its own, it is, but there is that wider context for getting the maximum use out of it.
I used to go to a Tai Chi class (I stopped only because I decided I’d taken it as far as I was going to), and the instructor, who never touted “chi” as anything more than a metaphor or a useful visualisation, said this about the internal arts:
In the old days (that would be pre-revolutionary China) you wouldn’t practice just Tai Chi, or begin with Tai Chi. Tai Chi was the equivalent of postgraduate study in the martial arts. You would start out by learning two or three “hard”, “external” styles. Then, having reached black belt in those, and having developed your power, speed, strength, and fighting spirit, you would study the internal arts, which would teach you the proper alignments and structures, the meaning of the various movements and forms. In the class there were two students who did Gojuryu karate, a 3rd dan and a 5th dan, and they both said that their karate had improved no end since taking up Tai Chi.
Which is not to say that Tai Chi isn’t useful on its own, it is, but there is that wider context for getting the maximum use out of it.