Why Tai Chi is Perfect for Winter
Winter is a season of stillness and reflection, mirroring the core principles of tai chi and qigong. As temperatures drop, these practices help keep the body warm by promoting gentle movement that circulates blood and energy throughout the body. They enhance immunity, improve circulation, and keep joints flexible, countering the natural tendency for stiffness and sluggishness during colder months. Additionally, tai chi fosters a calm mental state, offering a grounding and meditative respite from winter stress and seasonal blues. By embracing tai chi in winter, you align with the season’s inward energy while keeping your body and mind vibrant.
About Tai Chi and Qigong
Everyone is familiar with tai chi as the martial art that is practised very slowly, often by older people in parks (especially in China). Qigong (pronounced chee gong, also spelt chi kung) is a term used for an enormous variety of traditional Chinese practices, ranging from simple quiet meditative sitting through to tough training to harden the body for martial arts.
Qigong is made up of two characters. ‘Qi’ is often translated as energy, though really it’s untranslatable as it is used in hundreds of different ways in Chinese. ‘Life’ or ‘aliveness’ might be one way of understanding it. ‘Gong’ means skill. So qigong could be said to be training in the skill of life. Tai chi is often said to be a form of moving qigong where the movements are applied for fighting rather than health. With so many different traditional roots, as well as hundreds of modern styles, qigong can vary enormously. However, virtually all qigong is made up of three aspects – body, breath and mind. When body, breath and mind are wrapped up together in a seamless whole, we enter an optimum condition for becoming an integrated and healthy human being.
Body
Qigong, like tai chi, does not appear at first to be much like exercise. It is usually practised so slowly and smoothly that it bears no resemblance to the intense, aerobic, sweat and exhaustion-inducing training we are more familiar with. To understand what qigong and tai chi offer, a good starting point might be to consider what we would hope to get from the training in its broadest sense. This includes:
- relaxation, well-being and enjoyment of the body
- strength adequate for performing daily tasks, not just now but right through into old age; sinew strength is prioritised over muscle strength
- elasticity and flexibility of joints, muscles and fascia/connective tissue
- balance, groundedness
- alignment and connectedness/integration of all parts of the body
- full bodily awareness and good proprioception (knowing where every part of our bodies is in space)
- healthy heart, lungs and digestion
Regular practice of the right kind of qigong will help achieve all of these. One of the most obvious characteristics of qigong and tai chi is their slowness. The reason for this is that when we slow things down (and repeat them over and over), we can become more deeply aware of the body, of how it does (or doesn’t) move, of how it does (or doesn’t) feel, of our balance and alignment.
Breath
When we practise qigong and tai chi, it is not only movement that we slow down but breathing as well. Slow breathing is harmoniously synchronised with slow movement. Qigong breathing is not just slow, of course. Although we make sure to breathe in through the nose, the skill is then to mentally take the breath right down to the lower abdomen and lumbar region (maximising the descent of the diaphragm). To do this, we have to relax the chest and forget about consciously using the lungs. The effect of slow breathing in this way is profound and affects our physical, mental and emotional state in extraordinary ways.
Mind
The right kind of mental attention is crucial to the practice of qigong and tai chi, and our first aim is to cultivate mental presence so that the mind is fully absorbed in the body and the breath. It is common, especially in the early days of practice, to find this frustratingly difficult. The mind wanders off after a few seconds, and we get lost in thoughts, plans, or conversations we’ve had or should have had. It is important to be kind to ourselves and usher the mind back to the present in the same way we would gently bring back a toddler who keeps trying to wander off. Slowly, the amount of time we are able to stay in awareness of body and breath will increase, and the deep rewards of the practice will start to be experienced.
Reap the Winter Benefits
Tai chi is not just an excellent winter activity; it’s a bridge to better health during the year’s darkest days. With the meditative slowness of tai chi, you can build resilience and find warmth within, even as the chill bites outside. Its emphasis on balance and grounding mirrors the need to stay centred in a season often associated with introspection. By including tai chi or qigong in your winter wellness routine, you not only stay active but foster a profound connection between body, mind, and spirit that echoes long after the season has passed.
Written by Daniel Maxwell
Daniel is a practitioner of Chinese medicine, including acupuncture, tuina (Chinese remedial massage), Chinese herbal medicine and the Chinese internal arts of tai chi and qigong. He is also the editor of The Journal of Chinese Medicine, the foremost international English language journal dealing with all aspects of Chinese Medicine. After studying these arts for over 25 years and teaching for years in London, he now works one-on-one to improve the health of his patient in his clinics in Bath and Frome (Somerset, UK). See www.danielmaxwell.com for more details.