First of all Tai Chi is not of religion or cult. People get this misconception largely due to the Yin Yang symbol that most Tai Chi clubs use in their advertising or display on their uniform.

Tai Chi is best described as meditation and movement that exercises both mind and body.

Tai Chi is deeply rooted in Chinese meditation, medicine, and martial arts. It is a form of co-ordinated slow, graceful and fluid, body movements focusing on the cultivation of internal energy, referred to as 'chi', designed to relax and develop your whole body. The effort is almost undetectable. The subtlety of Tai Chi cannot be adequately described in words .... it can only be felt.

The aim of Tai Chi is to harmonise the mind, body and spirit, promoting both mental and physical well being through softness and relaxation. When practiced correctly the movements of tai chi appear rhythmical, effortless and in continuous flow.

Even with a small amount of practise, you will find beneficial effects to your health & fitness:

The lack of reliance on tension and speed makes it uniquely applicable to almost anyone –even those with conditions that may exclude them from other forms of exercise. The elderly, the overweight, and the arthritic can all participate.

Unlike most forms of exercise and sport, Tai Chi does not rely on strength, force and speed. This makes it ideal for people of both sexes, young and old alike whether strong or weak.

Just learning to relax and breathe more deeply are good reasons to take up Tai Chi. As with meditation what you learn from the practice transfers into your everyday life.

Tai Chi helps you feel how inextricably interwoven the mental and physical body is. Your mood, your emotional states, and your physical states all begin to improve at the same time.

Practicing tai chi also helps to counteract the repetitiveness of our jobs and daily routines, where our bodies move only in limited ways. Sitting in front of a computer all day abuses the body. We’re not using our body’s versatility. Like a hinge, if you don’t use it, it gets sticky and it begins to seize.

Tai Chi is best practised in a class with an experienced instructor but it is not always possible to find a local class at a time that it is convenient to you. If you cant find a class then take a look at the DVD page on this site. These DVDs will teach you a range of exercises that you can do at home at a time that suits you.

The Symbol (Yin-Yang) represents the ancient Chinese understanding of how things work. For any entity, the outer circle represents the whole, while the black and white shapes within the circle represent the interaction of two aspects, called "yin" (black) and "yang" (white), which cause the entity to appear in its peculiar way. Each of them contains an element or seed of the other, and they cannot exist without each other.

For example consider night and day. Taking the dark part of the circle (Yin) as night and the White section (Yang) as day you will see how each flow effortlessly into each other. However the Yin section contains a small Yang circle and vice versa showing that one is never completely on its own.

Remember even though it may be night the sun has not disappeared - it is just somewhere else! Within this context, women are yin and men are yang. Soft is Yin and hard is Yang - backwards is Yin, forwards Yang.

The yin and yang symbol perfectly represents the practise of Tai Chi movements. Stillness flows into movement, pushing movements into pulling, upward movents into downwards and so on.