Open the Door - Understanding the Dan Tian in Tai Chi

Before you read please understand that this is opinion focus’ on the overall health, wellness, and longevity aspect of tai chi and not the war aspect. This is important to keep in mind to the maintain the balance of yinyang. During class I always give tips out to focus your breathing in your belly button or lower abdomen area and every so often I’ll throw out the term dan tian. I feel I should have posters or some type of image to help in my class as a point of reference, but I also feel that would be somewhat a distraction. I like to keep the consistent thought that achieving balance is so simple it’s hard. The reason for that is the exact reason I don’t say the term dan tian in class all the time. In my opinion its easier to break everything down as simple as possible to shred away the fabrications that we are somewhat used to. As a teacher I’m used to breaking everything down weather it be mental or physical aspects of tai chi.

There can be thousands or even more say millions of things we can discuss in Tai Chi and how to better understand it. Yet we need to balance our thoughts where millions of things are nothing at all. Just like the art of tai chi when passed along from generation to generation the interpretation or knowledge of the art can be somewhat distorted. However, each interpretation can be equal as well. To help you make the best decision and understanding for yourself is where Wikipedia comes in. I think that you should also read through the information to help understand my reason for not mentioning the dan tian in class so much. If you don’t have the time let me sum it up for you as simple as I can. I like to think of the dan tian as a complete whole in itself; rather than breaking it up into more than what it needs to be. Yes, it can be broken down into three parts, but regardless the three parts remain in unison. Too much separation and thought can be the exact opposite of what you need. Control your body, then relax the mind, and breathe. The dan tian in whole will follow and align naturally.