The very practical need traditionally for the Chinese martial art of taijiquan was for survival. Originally a secular development with no religious associations. The development of “temple” tai chi stemmed from the Buddhist Shaolin tradition for which every historical reference refers to the needs of the monks to regain physical fitness having degenerated physically from an extreme sedentary lifestyle of prayer, fasting, and inactivity. Daoist temples, however, adopted tai chi primarily as a means of living “forever” on the road to achieving spiritual revelation within the “bells and smells” experience of Daoist temple daily life.
We refer to the secular version of tai chi and that which we feel is the closest to the original as a “traditional’ tai chi style relying on the accomplished 20th century martial artists who published and whose works were translated into English by their first-generation students. But dispensing with the introduced Daoist concepts and terminology which do not appear in the Tai Chi Classics, i.e. the earliest acknowledged literature of taijiquan.
The traditional areas of study within taijiquan included precise physical alignments, tai chi principles, and applications of movements and forms. This was a tradition of the study of body mechanics exclusively for the practical applications of taijiquan, i.e., armed and unarmed self-defence and fighting.
The original taijiquan forms were optimized to be the most energy-efficient and effective self-defence and fighting applications. A battle situation could last for many hours or even days. And an attack from bandits or multiple assailants required conservation of energy as well as maintaining fighting condition over what could be hours. The effective physical technique and energy efficiency required for such conditions produces the biggest health and energy conditioning results for the body.
It is not by accident, therefore, but very conscious and intentional that doing tai chi can be both fun and addictive. Because after you do your practice your body feels better, vital and more alive.
Even if it no longer remains a matter of life or death!