as a christian i've been warned to leave tai chi alone

I did Taiji a while back and caught Demonitis!

I ended up looking like this for a whole year.



I really don't get this whole thing really. As Matthew Barnes already stated, God gave us these body, so I bet He would want us to use them and get the most we can out them rather than let them go to waste.

And don't forget, if God created everything, He created martial arts as well.

 

i agree. if a God or if many Gods created martial arts, then he/she/they have purposely given humans the advantage to learn them.

honestly, if a christian out of the roman catholic church claims that martial arts or tai chi is bad, then they are obviously ignorant to the advantages that martial arts can give human-beings. tai chi is a great example because it really helps promote healthier lifestyles when practiced.

 

Does seem rather strange. I imagine the people they sent on the great crusades against Islam were pretty handy in a fight.

 

i have alot of friends that are christian,but i have noticed in my time in the south that alot of christians are scared to take part in many things if they dont have a christian sign on them.i bet that if there was a guy that did christian tai chi.and related all the teaching of tai chi to god there would not be a problem.

 

Hey, I think you got something there. I think I'll start a Christian TC school and suck in all those gullible Christians. Must be a lot of money in that!

 

haha you would be surprised at how many christian karate schools there are here.it is all just marketing,a way to get people in the doors.there are alot of gyms that do that too...

 

I don't know if it is universal but my local YMCA has a real problem in approving or disapproving of activities.
Most MA are OK. Meditation is OK but not Buddhist Meditation - not allowed to cross the threshold. Tai Chi is taught and Yoga. The Yoga teacher begins witha prayer to her Hindu guru - no doubt she'll be banned too. If they knew Tai Chi is linked with other belief systems it would also probably get banned. Aikido would be out if we bow to the Kamiza I guess, and as for Capoeira and consulting the bones etc . . . !

Down the road all the local church halls allow pretty much anything - guess they need the money more than the moralising.

 

Yeah, heh, that's been my experience too.

Years ago, on occassion I would go practice with aikido friends who also studied at a jujitsu school, figuring it would be interesting to compare aikidowaza with earlier versions of the same techniques (it was, very) paying a mat fee in some places, and in others getting invited onto the mat by the instructor. That latter school was held in a church basement in downtown NYC. On occassion I'd hear that the ministers got flack (I never knew exactly what the complaint was, it was something about jujitsu conflicting with a pacifist ideology or something - odd for a church that suppported Liberation Theologians in Central America during the '80's) for the Jujitsu class being there on a near daily basis, but they always stood firm, because they so desperately needed the extra income.

While recovering from an aikido injury I took up taijiquan again and briefly joined a yang style group that had been meeting in a Lutheran Church for decades. I wondered if they ever had such problems, but never heard of any in the brief time I was there.

 

its all about intention i got into chi about 3 years ago and i had the intention of taking all the credit for my self and becoming "more powerful than God" and oddly enough, i had a very scary encouter with a demon, just ask for more details and ill tell you the story. Years go by then i join up with my current dojo and they do Qigung and the instructor is a hardcore christian. He explained to me that Qigung has been proven to lower blood pressure improve your memmory and immune system and many other great benifits and he said " isnt it true that ALL good things come from God?" And Tai Chi and Qigung are good things for you, as long as your intention is that, God provided this for me in this day and age to help keep me healthy, and you give thanks to Him for that, and well it works for me and no more nasty demons...-john

 

That's the perfect rejoinder to the question at hand.

BTW - the new issue of Tai Chi Magazine has a pretty good survey of the health benefits of taiji, as reported in articles written in medical journals - see http://www.tai-chi.com/ed_notebook.php?id=131 -