The relationship between yoga and Tai Chi

Yoga and Tai Chi are two independent physical and mental training systems that were born in the ancient Indian Brahmin civilization and the Chinese farming civilization respectively. The two are highly similar in the core goal of "coordinated training of body, breath and mind", but there is no inheritance connection in cultural foundation, movement logic, and practice path. The mutual reference in the current practice scene is the product of cross-cultural fitness practice, and there is no homologous or subordinate relationship.

I have been practicing Ashtanga Yoga for 6 years. Last year, I followed Master Chen, the successor of Chen Style Tai Chi in my community, for 8 months. I feel very deeply about this. I always made a joke when I first learned the standing three-asana pose. After practicing yoga for a long time, I got used to "extending the spine" and "activating the core muscles" in every movement. When standing, I couldn't help but tighten my ribs and stretch my stomach. Master Chen slapped me on the back: "Don't hold your breath and exert it. Let the breath sink into the Dantian. I don't want you to suck it into your stomach and make it stiff." That's when I reacted. Looking back, it seems that they both require body stability and even breathing, but the underlying logic of the two is fundamentally different: yoga posture training is more about establishing active control of the muscles first, and then slowly adjusting the coordination of breathing and thoughts; while Tai Chi first seeks the feeling of "consciousness and breath", and then exerts force to carry out the movements, so that the muscles are relaxed.

It is also interesting to say that the two seem to be incompatible, but the actual clinical effects are surprisingly similar. Beijing Sport University conducted a controlled study in 2022, dividing 60 office workers with chronic non-specific low back pain into two groups, and conducted regular yoga and Tai Chi training for 12 weeks. In the end, the pain relief rate of both groups exceeded 70%, and there was almost no difference in the improvement data of waist and abdominal core strength. It’s no wonder that many people think that the two have “the same origin” – after all, when practiced to the depths, they both pay attention to not forcing or competing, and pursue the adaptation of movements and breathing, which can ultimately achieve the effect of relieving physical stress and calming emotions. Even the “Prana (life energy)” in traditional yoga and the “qi” in Tai Chi are both abstract descriptions of the flow of energy within the human body, but each has a different cultural context.

But if the two things really come from the same origin, the orthodox factions on both sides will be the first to refuse. Most veteran boxers in the traditional Tai Chi circle believe that the root of Tai Chi is martial arts, and that all movements are designed to release and exert force in actual combat, and self-cultivation is only a side effect. Nowadays, many fusion classes change Tai Chi to slow-motion stretching, which essentially loses its soul; while traditional yoga The inheritors of the Jia School do not agree with this statement. Hatha yoga is originally a preparatory training for meditation. All postures are designed to keep the body in a state of meditation for a long time. They have nothing to do with martial arts. The ultimate goals of the two are not in the same direction at all. I once met a teacher who teaches "Tai Chi flow yoga" in a yoga studio. She is an inheritor of Yang's Tai Chi. She said that when she first started this class, people on both sides scolded her. The Tai Chi circle said she wasted her ancestors' things, and the yoga circle said she was unprofessional by changing the sequence randomly. She didn't care. Anyway, after the class, the students' shoulders and necks no longer hurt, and they slept better, which is better than anything else.

I am still practicing Ashtanga three times a week and Tai Chi twice a week. When I was doing cloud hand exercises last time, I suddenly realized that the logic of shifting the center of gravity of the lower limbs is somewhat similar to the second warrior pose of yoga, but one is to pave the way for the subsequent turning of the palms to exert force, and the other is to open the hips and extend the side waist. The outer shell looks similar, but the core is completely different. Someone asked me before if I wanted to get a Tai Chi yoga instructor certificate. I thought about it and decided not to. I am an enthusiast myself. I don’t know the principles of fusion. I just need to be comfortable while practicing.

In the end, whether you are practicing downward dog on a yoga mat or holding a round stake in horse stance, isn’t what you want in the end all about a stretched body and a clear mind? If you insist on fighting over who is superior and who is inferior, and who copies whom, you will end up at the bottom. Just like Sichuan's twice-cooked pork and India's curry chicken, both can make people full and happy. It's really unnecessary to insist on who borrowed whose seasoning ideas.