Tai Chi Chuan

I’ve been involved with martial arts my whole life, so to try something new like Tai Chi Chuan was a learning experience. I went back home to Northern Virginia last weekend and went to visit my old Hapmudo instructor. I asked for his personal opinion of Tai Chi Chuan and if he could recommend me to any studio that properly teach Tai Chi. although he only took a handful of classes, he found it to be very relaxing and great to stretch your muscles. I was referred to a friend of his who taught in a martial arts studio in Annandale. When I went to the class, there were about 10 other people there. The first thing I realized was that everyone was in their regular clothes except the instructor. The instructor was relatively young and had a long white silk uniform. We began the class with a few stretching exercises. While we were stretching, he emphasized that this art is to relax the mind and that we need to focus from a defensive stand point. I couldn’t really understand everything he said (his English wasn’t that good and some of the stuff he said made no sense). Once we were warmed up, we started with some “beginner” movements. I don’t recall name of all the movements but the exercises were harder than I thought and everything was from a defense stance. Thankfully the instructor took his time to show us step by step on how to do it correctly while constantly reminding us to “take our time”. The movements were extremely slow but the hard thing about it was getting the technique right. Getting your hands and feet coordinated correctly was a pain for me. We did a few more movements (around 5 of them) then did some more stretching to end the class. Being used to more offensive styles (Tae Kwon Do, Hapkido, etc.), I found Tai Chi Chuan to be extremely boring. However it was really relaxing and my body felt better overall.  I can see why this traditional Chinese martial art is popular between old people (my classmates were all around 40-70 years old). If I had to compare it to something, it would be yoga…unfortunately haha.