Tai Chi for Health -- According to the Masters

Tai Chi has started gaining momentum as a miraculous curer of all sorts of health problems. A quick search of the term “Tai Chi for Health” in Google® has turned up 271,000 results. According to Dr. Weil, one of the U.S. gurus in alternative health:

“Tens of millions of Chinese do tai chi every morning on sidewalks and in parks, while waiting for buses. I don't know about miraculous cures from this practice, but I think it is great for overall health. It's an excellent relaxation technique, and a way to harmonize the musculoskeletal and nervous systems. It develops concentration, better balance, and coordination. Clinical studies show that it can reduce the risk of falls in the elderly. And if you buy into the Chinese philosophy that illness results from blocked energy flow, then tai chi would be a way to improve the functioning of every system of the body.”

What did the Tai Chi masters have to say about the health benefits? Here are some answers:

• The Tai Chi Classics – “The ultimate meaning of Tai Chi practice is to expand your life span without aging while maintaining a youthful body at the same time.”
• Yang Lu Chan (Founder of Yang family Tai Chi) – “In order to improve the health of Chinese to protect the country, I have learned Tai Chi…. After I have started teaching Tai Chi, I quickly noticed the changes in my students: those who were skinny became strong, those overweighed became normal, and those who were sick became healthy.”
• Wu Jen Chuan (Son of the founder of Wu family Tai Chi) – “Tai Chi achieves wellness from both body and mind…. Anyone with depression, low red blood count, indigestion, and any alignments related to internal organs, bones, and tendons, can be recovered through the practice of Tai Chi. People with incurable medical problems will also achieve unexpected results.”
• Professor Cheng Man-Ching: “I have recovered from incurable tuberculosis in less than a month by practicing Tai Chi.”
• Wu Tu-Nan (Devoted student of Wu Jen Chan and Yang Shao Hou): Born with genetic neurological disorder, tuberculosis, and hepatitis. Tai chi did not just make him strong and formidable, but in fact, he was still teaching Tai Chi two years before he died in 1988, at the age of 108.