What Can Internal Martial Arts Such As Tai Chi or Ba Gua Can Be Extremely Effective For?

Most martial arts are primarily concerned with controlling external energy. However, a martial artist also needs to draw in energy and control it internally to maintain health and fitness. Qigong, Tai Chi and Ba Gua are the main systems for building and circulating "chi" in the body through the meridian channels identified by Traditional Chinese Medicine. All of these internal martial arts provide range of benefits among other things.

  1. Breathing

    • Learning to control the breath is a fundamental part of tai chi. Most people breathe into the upper chest, which is referred to as "natural breathing," whereas both qigong and tai chi teach you to draw the breath into the lower abdomen. This forces the diaphragm muscle downward to create room for the lungs to expand. First, this breathing technique allows you to draw in more oxygen. Second, the diaphragm's movement massages the internal organs, invigorating and strengthening them. Exercising your internal organs in this way promotes health and longevity.

    Mental Control

    • Another significant benefit of an internal martial art is the way it trains the mind to focus on internal energy and on the present moment. Teachers encourage beginners to concentrate on learning the sequence of movements first. Once the student can perform a sequence effortlessly, it is then time to control the mind. Internal martial arts teach students that energy follows the mind, so the student learns to visualize the energy and draw it around the body mentally. Practice also teaches the student awareness of blockages in the energy channels. He can then work to unblock the channels, allowing the energy to flow freely again. Energy blocks eventually manifest as physical disease. Apart from internal martial arts, acupuncture is another major system for releasing energy blocks.

    Centering Energy

    • Many people who practice internal martial arts use it to maintain good health and relieve stress. The techniques promote a unity of mind and body that strengthens the practitioners' response to events in everyday life. Learning awareness of the body's energy center, called the "dantian," creates a sense of being grounded that improves the ability to cope mentally and prevents you from feeling thrown off balance. Centering energy also provides anyone practicing an external martial art with energy co-ordination that they can use to create whole body power. This helps the martial artist use the minimum amount of muscle power in combat.

    Improve External Martial Arts Performance

    • Ba Gua, also called as Baguazhang and Pa Kua, focuses on a technique known as circle walking. This involves moving around a circle while performing a series of stylized movements that turn the body in changing directions. The use of spinning movements and agile footwork teaches the student to incorporate skill and strategy during external martial arts combat, rather than rely on physical strength alone. The student learns to remain flexible while in constant movement and respond to an opponent's individual strikes as they happen. The training exercises also develop leg and lower body strength. The system also instructs the student in ways of controlling internal energy so that it is resilient and elastic, according to the Chinese Internal Arts Association.