Tai Chi Chuan For Babies

Tai Chi Chuan For Babies

Tai Chi is a rather adult exercise. It takes patience, time, sustained effort, discipline, focus, long study and has many potent philosophical and psychological layers. In all this, it can be a pretty serious endeavor and if you take it too far in this direction, not all that much fun.

But wait! Did I say babies?

I am not thinking about babies in terms of ignorance or immaturity. I am thinking of babies in terms of their innocence, love, glee, curiosity and willingness to explore and play in the world around them. This is a big part of tai chi. It takes MORE than patient study. It takes gleeful curiosity and play to have it come alive.

Babies are all chi, are they not? It is natural and flowing and they interact with the world with a sort of innocent exploration that is key to our creativity and growth as human beings. This is not growth in terms of some preconceived result as in status or money, but growth in terms of experiencing new experience. They explore explore explore. But without any sense of a goal. It is just exploring because of the joy of it.

We are built that way it seems, but this quality gets lost for many of us as we become adults. Our place in the world takes on great responsibility, and this can crush our creative joyful exploratory spirit. Sometimes the playful quality gets attached to addictive or self destructive behaviors and takes us in the wrong direction. Play becomes escape from responsibility and serves as a way to run from difficulties.

Tai chi, with the attitude of a baby, is an endless source of enjoyment and growth. It’s like tapping into the “world of new” just to see what’s there. There is no sense of success or failure in all this. Can you imagine a baby evaluating its next move on the basis of some judgment regarding the worth of the exploration at hand? NEVER! They just do!

OK, they can get into trouble on that basis. I’m not suggesting we throw the baby out with the bathwater (couldn’t resist that one!) We do need to explore with some intelligence (with your internal sense of adult supervision!) We are not babies in total and thank G-d for that! But as long as we are not harming ourselves or others, this is a powerful way to work in tai chi.

This is the tai chi edge, being creative, but not being reckless. Being open, but not being stupid. Finding the new, but not at the expense of the old. Learning from play to better handle our responsibilities, not walk away from them.

So, all you babies out there: Go and play! It’s the robust healthy part of the baby mind that I’m encouraging you to tap into and see where that takes you.

You might rediscover the world and tai chi in one fell swoop!