Yoga and Tai Chi are the best combination

Yoga and Tai Chi are the best combination. This is not a cross-border marketing gimmick. I have practiced yoga for 8 years and Tai Chi for 5 years. I have been in contact with nearly a hundred practitioners of both types of sports, and combined with public research in the field of sports rehabilitation, I came to the conclusion that they just make up for each other's shortcomings and maximize their respective advantages.

I spent the past three years in an Ashtanga gym, always pursuing the depth of postures. After sitting in Lotus pose for a long time, the inner sides of my knees hurt. The coach said that my "strength was spread out and I couldn't hold it in." I tried various core strengthening courses but couldn't find the way. Later, I went with my mother to the park to practice Tai Chi. Master Chen glanced at my stance and laughed: "The little girl's whole body was tense, and all her strength was used to compete with herself. ”At that moment, I suddenly realized: What yoga practices is "unfolding", like stretching out crumpled paper bit by bit, while Tai Chi practices "contracting", like gently folding flattened paper into the most comfortable shape. When the two are put together, they will form a circle. If either one is missing, it will not be right.

Don't tell me, this feeling is really supported by data. A 2023 tracking study by the School of Sports and Human Sciences of Beijing Sport University found 120 subjects aged 50-70 and divided them into three groups. They practiced yoga alone, Tai Chi alone, and a combination of the two. After 12 weeks, the static balance ability of the combination group was 31.7% higher than that of the single exercise group, the chronic pain relief rate in the lower back was 26.8% higher, and even the sleep quality score was nearly 20 points higher. The reason is also simple: the myofascial stretching of yoga just solves the common problem of shoulder and hip stiffness among beginners of Tai Chi. The upright posture and sinking strength of Tai Chi also make up for the shortcomings of yoga practitioners who are prone to over-stretching and weak core. Even breathing is difficult. ——The Ujjayi breathing of yoga and the abdominal breathing of Tai Chi are essentially deep breathing driven by the diaphragm. The former focuses on using breathing to drive the body to extend, while the latter focuses on using breathing to drive force transmission. Together they form a linkage from the inside to the outside.

Of course, not everyone agrees with this statement, and there has always been controversy. I met an ascetic teacher who has been practicing for 15 years at a yoga exchange meeting. He said that Tai Chi is too slow and cannot reach the threshold of muscle activation. It is just a "leisure exercise for the elderly."” ； I have also met the heirs of the Tai Chi family and feel that yoga stretches the tendons excessively and depletes Qi and blood, which is inconsistent with the logic of "nurturing" in Eastern practice. These arguments are all valid: If you practice yoga just to prepare for a pose competition, then Tai Chi really won’t help you much. ； If you practice Tai Chi just to inherit the traditional practical strength, then the hip and shoulder opening of yoga may also disrupt your original strength-generating habit. But for 90% of ordinary practitioners, what we want is no physical pain and no mental panic. The combination of these two is the most cost-effective option.

Now when I give private classes, I always add 10 minutes of Tai Chi stance at the end of the yoga class. I once had a programmer who had pain in his lumbar protrusion for half a year, and it was difficult to even sit for half an hour. Before, I always felt that my lumbar spine was tight when I practiced yoga alone. Three weeks after adding stance, he told me that his waist is no longer stiff after sitting at work for an afternoon. There is also an aunt who has been doing Tai Chi for ten years. She has difficulty raising her arms due to adhesions around her shoulders. I taught her a few yoga shoulder-opening postures, and she was able to raise her arms to dry herself in bed in two months. There is no need to follow any rigid rules. I never set a standard for students on “what they must practice first and then what else”: When you wake up in the morning and feel stiff all over, do 20 minutes of Yin yoga to stretch your muscles, and then 10 minutes of Tai Chi to calm your breath. ； Recently, I have been feeling restless and unable to sit still, so I stand for 5 minutes to calm down, and then do a few yoga twisting poses to relieve the stagnation. Sometimes I am too lazy to move on cloudy and rainy days, so I just sit on the mat and use Ujjayi breathing for three minutes, and then shake my shoulders with the breathing feeling of Tai Chi for ten minutes. It is more comfortable than forcing myself to complete a whole set.

In fact, there is no absolute "best". They are just two physical and mental cultivation methods that have been passed down for hundreds of thousands of years. They just hit the two things that modern people lack most: if they lack stretching, yoga will give you it; if they lack calmness, Tai Chi will give you it. Recently, the yoga studio near my home has opened a new Tai Chi trial class, and the Tai Chi studio across the street has also added yoga warm-up content. The choice of practitioners is always more noisy and practical than theory. If you practice yoga one day and your whole body feels tight, or you can't find the feeling of strength while doing Tai Chi, you might as well try it. Maybe after standing for five minutes, the next downward dog will be very stable.