The Difference and Connection between Yoga and Tai Chi

The core conclusion will be laid out directly first: Yoga and Tai Chi are both physical and mental cultivation systems with "linkage of body, breath and mind" as the core. The difference is rooted in the difference in the underlying logic of Eastern and Western cultures - Yoga originated in ancient India, focusing on the exploration and breakthrough of individual energy, and the school divisions are more vertical.； Tai Chi was born out of traditional Chinese philosophy, emphasizing the harmony and harmony of the overall relationship, and stressing the integrity of the unity of nature and man. There is no distinction between the two in essence. The differences in preferences among different practitioners are essentially the choice of cultivation paths under different cultural logics.

I have been practicing Hatha Yoga for seven years, and I also took the RYT200 coaching certificate. In the first three years, I always felt that it was the most scientific exercise in the world: to open the hip, you need to touch the edge of the limit and stay for 30 seconds. For Warrior 2, you need to ensure that the knees and ankles are in the same vertical line. Ujayi breathing needs to be controlled so that every inhale and exhale are the same length. Even the resting technique needs to be relaxed from the toes to the top of the head in order. At that time, my impression of Tai Chi was still the scene of old men and women paddling slowly in the park. It wasn’t until three years ago that I accompanied my mother for morning exercises and practiced 24 simplified Tai Chi with Master Chen in the community for half a month. Only then did I realize that the differences between the two are deeper than I thought, and that they had more in common than I thought.

Let’s talk about the most intuitive somatosensory difference first. I used to practice pigeon pose, and the instructor would help me press it until I was sore that I shed tears and had to grit my teeth to hold on. To put it bluntly, the core logic of yoga is "finding boundaries." It's like cleaning glass. I focus on which areas are tight and repeatedly rub them away, breaking through the body's original range of motion little by little. And because it later matured in Europe and the United States, the schools have been divided into very fine details: if you want to reduce fat, practice flow yoga, if you want to recover after surgery, practice therapeutic yoga, and if you want to cultivate your mind, practice mindfulness meditation yoga. You can find subdivided schools corresponding to almost every need you can think of. Of course, there are different voices in the circle now. There is a group of traditional yoga practitioners who feel that the current commercialized yoga has gone astray. It was originally a training tool, but now it has become a gimmick for taking photos with a concave shape and losing weight. Instead, it has lost the core of the integration of body, breath and mind.

I made a joke when I practiced Tai Chi for the first time. I stretched my arms hard to assume a standard posture. Master Chen came up and patted my arm: "Don't compete with me. Just treat it as a ball of freshly sprung cotton in your hands. The energy should come from the soles of your feet, pass through your waist, and then go to your fingertips. Any stiffness means that the energy is held in and needs to be released." ”It was then that I understood that the logic of Tai Chi is to "focus on the whole", just like stirring up a basin of muddy water and waiting for it to settle naturally. You don't have to focus on a certain piece of dirty stuff and exert force. If you move your whole body, what should sink will sink and what should be cleared will naturally clear up. Nowadays, there are also differences in the Tai Chi circle. The older generation feels that competitive Tai Chi is too focused on beautiful movements and loses the core of looseness. Young people feel that traditional Tai Chi is too slow and boring, and is not as effective as yoga practice. Occasionally, the two sides will argue a few words. Oh, and there is another very interesting prejudice: many yoga practitioners think that Tai Chi does not have enough mobility and is useless. Many elders who practice Tai Chi think that yoga is stretching the muscles and pulling out the bones and damaging the vitality. In fact, these are misunderstandings that do not get to the core - if you look at professional competitive Tai Chi athletes, their flexibility is no worse than that of yoga instructors who have been practicing for ten years. The relaxation and sinking of the shoulders by masters of traditional Yin yoga is basically the same thing as the relaxation and sinking of Tai Chi.

It's not right to say that these two are completely two different paths. I attended a physical and mental healing workshop last year. The lecturer was a certified instructor of Yoga E-RYT500 and a fourth-generation inheritor of Wu-style Tai Chi. When she warmed up, she included both the cat-cow pose of yoga to flex the spine, and Tai Chi's shoulder shaking and loosening of the hips. She even guided the breathing: in yoga Ujjayi breathing requires the throat chakra to be slightly closed, breathing deep, slow and even. Abdominal breathing in Tai Chi requires Qi to sink into the Dantian, neither fast nor slow. The essence is to adjust our daily shallow and fast chest breathing into deep and slow breathing that can soothe the sympathetic nerves. To put it bluntly, it is all about regulating "breath", the switch that connects the body and emotions. I used to have insomnia while working on a project. I could fall asleep after practicing yoga nidra for 20 minutes, and I could relax and fall asleep while standing for 20 minutes on a Tai Chi post. The effect was not much different.

I once taught a student with bad knees. She always felt knee pain when practicing warrior pose, and the problem of exerting force could not be solved for a long time. Later, I taught her to practice the low lunge of Tai Chi first. She did not need to squat so low, but first found the feeling of "the energy comes from the feet, not to the knees." After practicing for half a month, she went back to do warrior pose, and she never had any pain again. You see, the logic of exerting force in Tai Chi can still be used in yoga. There is also the most basic Mountain Pose in yoga, which requires ten toes to grip the ground, the core to be slightly contracted, the shoulders to sink, and the head to lift. Isn’t this the most basic requirement for Tai Chi stance? To put it bluntly, it is all about practicing the feeling of "taking root".

Nowadays, there are always people arguing on the Internet about which one is better, yoga or Tai Chi. I think it is completely unnecessary. If you like a clear progression path and want to quickly improve your flexibility and core strength, yoga is definitely the right choice. ； If you are impatient and want to exercise your temper, or have bad joints and don’t want to compete with your body, Tai Chi is more suitable. Now I do 20 minutes of Yin yoga to relax my shoulders and neck after get off work on weekdays. When I have time on weekends, I go to the park to do Tai Chi with Master Chen for half an hour. There is no conflict at all. People who have really reached an advanced level will not bother about the difference between the two. All methods come together, and in the end, isn't it all to understand their body better and live more comfortably?