The similarities between yoga and tai chi

Both are physical and mental exercises that achieve the harmony of the trinity of "body-breath-mind" through the synchronous calibration of body posture, breathing rhythm, and focus of consciousness. They are essentially "life practices that anchor the present moment in dynamic or static conditions." The so-called "both are slow and can be stretched" are just similarities on the surface. The core operating logic is the foundation for the true connection between the two.

In my sixth year of practicing Ashtanga yoga, I injured my meniscus due to a misalignment of my strength during the jump jump. The doctor did not allow me to do high-intensity lower limb movements, so I had no choice but to follow Master Chen, who does Tai Chi in the community, to make up for it. At the beginning, I was still carrying the posture of a yoga practitioner, thinking that Tai Chi was slow and slow and only played by the elderly. It was not until I stood for 8 minutes for the first time and the amount of sweat on my back was about the same as the amount of sweat I sweat after practicing a complete set of Ashtanga primary sequences, that I was shocked that this thing was not what I thought at all.

Don't tell me, the first thing that breaks the similarity is the body's somatosensory feeling. When I practiced Yoga Mountain Pose before, my teacher always said, "The soles of your feet should be rooted into the ground as if there are roots growing there. The center of your head should be pulled up by an invisible rope. Don't lock your knees and retract your ribs." Later, Master Chen taught me how to get up in Tai Chi. He said, "You should stand upright and be impartial." I stood there and almost laughed - don't these two words mean the same thing? Later, I specifically compared it and found that the knee joints required in yoga should not exceed the toes, the core should be slightly retracted, and the shoulders and neck should be sunk. They are almost exactly the same as the requirements of Tai Chi stances. Even the logic of exerting force is similar: Yoga Warrior 2 requires opening the hips, sinking the center of gravity, and transmitting force from the feet to the fingertips. There is no physical difference at all from Tai Chi lunge requirements of "sitting on the hips, sinking the shoulders, dropping the elbows, and exerting force to the tip joints."

Even more interesting is the logic of breathing. No matter which school of yoga, breathing is the root. Ashtanga requires that every movement corresponds to a complete Ujjahi throat breath. You cannot hold your breath or pant. Even if you are practicing fast-paced flow yoga, disordered breathing means that the movements are all wrong. Not to mention Tai Chi, Master Chen told me from the first day, "Don't focus on the style of the moves before boxing. First, practice your breathing smoothly." When doing cloud hand movements, exhale and retract the hands, inhale when rising and exhale when falling, which is completely consistent with the rule of "inhale when stretching and exhale when folding" in yoga. In the past, I used to hold back my energy while practicing Tai Chi and get dizzy after doing it two or three times. Later, I moved on to the abdominal breathing method of practicing yoga and followed my breathing and exercised, and I didn’t feel tired even after doing it for half an hour.

The common point that is most easily overlooked is actually the requirement for the mind. "Parayama" among the eight branches of yoga is about taking back the radiating senses. Don't worry about whether the movements are good or not, or whether they are deeper than others. Just focus on your current body feelings and breathing. When I used to practice yoga, I always liked to compete with the people next to me to see who could do the deepest splits. The teacher would always pat me on the back and say, "My mind is running away, and all my practice is in vain." In Tai Chi, the saying "intention not force" actually means the same thing. When boxing, you don't need to compete with others about whose movements are regular. You should focus on the path of your strength. One time when I was playing cloud hand, I lost my mind and thought about the unfinished plan, and all the strength in my hand was lost. Master Chen touched my wrist lightly and I almost fell out. When I brought my attention back to my breathing and the feeling of force in my palm, he pushed me again and I couldn't push it anymore. This is exactly the same experience as when I was practicing yoga tree pose.

Of course, there are also many practitioners who do not agree that the two are connected, and these views are all valid. I know a little girl who practices competitive Tai Chi and she said that the essence of Tai Chi is martial arts, and every move and style has a logic of attack and defense. Yoga is a practice that focuses on maintaining health, which is not the same thing at all. ； Another friend who teaches Iyengar yoga thinks that yoga requires body alignment that is accurate to the millimeter, while many Tai Chi movements have different requirements for different people, and there is no unified standard, so there is no similarity. These differences actually fall on the level of "skills": the cultural backgrounds of their origins are completely different, and their evolutionary paths are also very different. The external forms are naturally very different, but if it falls on the level of "Tao" and the truest sense of the practitioner, those core logics cannot be deceived.

Last year, I held a stress-reduction class for office workers for the company's labor union. I specially combined the neck stretching and spinal twisting of yoga with the cloud hands and stances of Tai Chi. Programmers who usually sit for so long that their waists and necks are stiffened to stone, after practicing it twice, they said they were much more comfortable than practicing yoga alone or learning Tai Chi alone. Essentially, the core logic of the two has never changed: they both help people loosen their frozen bodies, straighten their chaotic breathing, and bring back the gods who are floating outside. How can they be superior or inferior?

I still maintain the habit of doing Tai Chi for half an hour in the morning and soothing yoga for half an hour in the evening. Friends often ask me which one is better. I always say that whether it is yoga practiced in caves by practitioners in the Indus Valley five thousand years ago or Tai Chi honed in actual combat by Chinese boxers hundreds of years ago, in the final analysis they are tools left to us by our ancestors to help us find physical and mental balance. The best practice is the one that makes you stretch your body and feel at ease after practicing. You see, isn't this the most fundamental similarity between the two?