title: Tai Chi Ch'Uan: The Gentle Workout for Mind & Body
author:  Wei Yue Sun 
description: Tai chi chuan is alternately exercise, dance, religious ritual, life philosophy, and a form of meditation. Here, although the authors touch briefly on the spiritual and philosophical aspects, the exercise component is stressed. As with any form of intelligently undertaken exercise, the health benefits of tai chi can be significant as regards heart condition, blood pressure, stress reduction, and overall flexibility. For each clearly photographed and diagrammed movement, the authors include a description of the body's action, the position of the eyes, a breathing regimen, a mental focus, and the corresponding self-defense application should one choose to concentrate on the martial-art aspect of the exercise. In all, there are 78 separate movements detailed, divided into five sections of ascending difficulty. The appeal of tai chi is that it can be an effective form of low-impact aerobics and that it can be--once the basics are in place--performed alone. This modest guide will serve as a valuable introduction as one begins formal instruction. <i>Wes Lukowsky</i>
zlib_text: 
  On Relaxation
  By Ma Hong
  Translated by Tu-Ky Lam
  In my article entitled ‘On spring-like force’ I briefly mentioned relaxation. Now I would like 
  to elaborate the same topic so that Chen style practitioners can see its importance. From my 
  observation, Yang and Wu style practitoners pay much more attention to relaxation than Chen 
  stylists, who place so much emphasis on the training of ‘fa-jing’ (power discharge) that they ignore 
  the importance of relaxation. In fact, many Chen style practitioners do not realize relaxation is the 
  foundation of spring-like force, which requires a mixture of soft and strong.
  Meaning and contents of relaxation
  Grand master Chen Zhao-kui put a lot of emphasis on relaxation. In summer 1973, when he was 
  teaching me in his home, he said, “Throughout the practice of Taijiquan, the whole body has to 
  relax and sink. You have to be one hundred percent relaxed. And all the joints in the body will have 
  to be loosened right through to the tips of the fingers. 