Tai Chi is often described as meditation in motion, as by doing gentle, slow movements together with deep breathing you can feel that you are in an altered state of consciousness filled with peace and balance of body and mind.
Tai Chi is a mind-body exercise that combines set movements with relaxation and breathing. It requires concentration on the basis of relaxation and breathing. According to the US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), mind-body exercises are activities that intentionally affect mental and physical fitness. Thus, it can be said that by practising the art of Tai Chi we strengthen ourselves physically and mentally.
Tai Chi is also one of the cognitive-motor exercises that is commonly performed at moderate intensity. Its choreographic routine usually consists of graceful, slow, fluid movements and is performed in coordination with deep breathing, relaxation and mental focus. Tai Chi exercises therefore enable the formation of key motor qualities, which include fitness abilities such as: speed, strength and endurance, as well as the abilities referred to as collateral abilities, i.e. flexibility, agility, agility, coordination and stability, and enhance cognitive processes, i.e. the information processing processes that take place in the nervous system involving the reception of information from the environment, the storage and transformation of this information, and the output of this information back to the environment. Thus, it can be said that the practice of the art of Tai Chi has an impact on the maintenance of mental performance.
Practising Tai Chi is like swimming in a boundless ocean of energy. Just as a swimmer performs individual movements in order to be able to swim in the water, the Tai Chi adept, by performing individual sequences of form, moves in the all-encompassing space of air, which is filled with particles of energy. As a result, this surrounding energy can be drawn with practically the whole surface of the body. When performing a specific, very fast movement with the hand in the open air, one has the sensation of slight resistance, which confirms that the air, although transparent, is at the same time a mass of gaseous particles in which we move.
In summary, Tai Chi helps the weak to become strong, the sick to recover, the shy to teach courage. Its practice strengthens a person physically and mentally.