[beezlebroxxxxxx]

There doesn't really seem to be anything unique to single out tai chi in particular in this study. The benefits pointed out in the article --- that it's meditative, encourages stretching and relaxation, improves balance --- seem to also be associated with things like yoga, or just going through a general stretching and mobility routine. They idea that calming yourself (removing stress or just relaxing) will lower your blood pressure is so intuitive to most people that we say someone needs to calm down or "they'll blow a gasket."

The contrast with "vigorous aerobic exercises" is also interesting. The study looked at

> "Aerobic exercise interventions included climbing stairs, jogging, brisk walking, and cycling. Exercise intensity in the aerobic exercise group was monitored. The maximum heart rate was estimated as 208 − (0.7 × age in years)."

which makes you wonder how much the findings compare to the well known benefits of zone-2 HR aerobic training. "Vigorous" is a bit of weird term that suggests very different things between different people. Low HR cardio is usually not considered "vigorous" at all.

Another broader question would be whether maximizing lowered blood pressure is more important than getting people doing "vigorous" aerobic exercise, which brings a whole host of important benefits along with lowering blood pressure. Most people should get a lot more aerobic exercise and use relaxation methods, but I would probably recommend aerobic exercise first.

[bdsa]

Isn't the expression usually "blow a gasket"? Meaning to blow a seal in a pressurised system

[smeej]

I think you're right, but "blow a casket" does sound more dire!

[beezlebroxxxxxx]

Oh god you're right! I think autocorrect just jumped to casket on me. I'll edit it to fix.

[dylan604]

yeah, but blowing a gasket might put you in a casket

[thesz]

I tried to learn some tai chi long ago and found that it is not possible to perform tai chi correctly if you are thinking about anything, including thinking about performing tai chi correctly.

And "not thinking about anything" is exceptionally hard.

[cassianoleal]

Yes, that's the meditative part of it. It's very hard to impossible to perform if you don't calm your mind and focus on the movement.

[krumpet]

I've noticed the exact same effect from playing the guitar.

[riku_iki]

My observation is that in both cases it is two steps process:

1. You use conscious part of your mind to slowly doing isolated drills with good control and understanding of every detail. On this step conscious part controls process and unconscious part of mind is being trained by observing the drill and outcome.

2. unconscious part of mind is now trained, and you can disable conscious part which will make result better, because unconscious part is better in contoling motor functions.

[mbivert]

Well, it's surprisingly trivial for newborns!

More seriously, I can't think of a single reason as to why it could not be at least trained; there must be ways. Not that I disagree with you, far from it.

[krisoft]

> it's surprisingly trivial for newborns!

how do you know?

[mbivert]

I was half-joking (hence the "more seriously").

Nonetheless, the serious half is to be understood with a contextually reasonable definition of "thinking": "the thoughts running through the mind of an adult [when he tries to relax]". It seems fair to argue that such thoughts require a prolonged, sophisticated interaction with human society, which newborns lack.

[krisoft]

> "the thoughts running through the mind of an adult [when he tries to relax]".

So by that definition teenagers don't do any thinking because they are not adults?

Also by that definition nobody ever thinks at work because they are working, not trying to relax.

(Not even mentioning that the definition as given only applies to males.)

I'm suspicious of this definition and doesn't match how I use the word "thinking". But I see that if you have this definition then tautologically newborns don't do it.

[mbivert]

> I'm suspicious of this definition and doesn't match how I use the word "thinking". But I see that if you have this definition then tautologically newborns don't do it.

Let me rephrase the argument then: if you've been meditating at least a little, you'll know that the thoughts running through your mind simply cannot occur in the mind of a newborn. When those thoughts go away, your mind go quiet, hence it's reasonable to assume that newborns are naturally, essentially quiet.

Besides, I'm not proposing a mathematical/exact definition here: common sense/good faith is naturally required to make sense of it. I am not redefining what "thinking" means, but locally using the word "thinking" as a loose shortcut for "the mind activities occurring when one tries to relax/meditate".

[brendoelfrendo]

It's probably worth mentioning that the Chinese government really likes to promote Tai Chi as a cultural and athletic practice, so there's a lot of effort spent on justifying Tai Chi as uniquely beneficial, especially as compared to Yoga or other foreign practices that might have similar benefits. Looking at the author's affiliations on this paper, I imagine this is what they're doing.

[foobarian]

I happened to be in Shanghai for a work trip once, meaning the day was pretty booked with meetings indoors. The only time to go sightsee was in the early morning, which revealed a hidden side of the city - streets were filled with elderly people doing tai-chi exercises. It was pretty surreal! I could totally see how it would be a ton of fun as a local retiree :-)

[JoshTko]

This. Nearly all of author affiliations listed include "Chinese medicine" as part of affiliated organization's name.

[adrian_b]

Yoga is not really comparable, because it is much more static.

Of course, there is nothing magic about the Tai chi sequences and many other sequences of movements executed in a similar manner should have a similar effect.

A general stretching and mobility routine could be equivalent, but only if it would be similarly complete in exercising the whole body. Presumably the manner of executing Tai chi sequences, i.e. slowly and with appropriate respiration, matters.

The advantage of Tai chi sequences or of other sequences derived from Chinese martial arts or their Okinawan derivatives, i.e. various karate kata, is that in comparison with general stretching and mobility routines they are like reciting a poem compared to reciting a few pages memorized from a dictionary.

Such sequences of movements that have a meaning are both more pleasant to execute and easier to remember in every detail, to avoid skipping some parts.

[smolder]

Recently a study showed that isometric exercises (i.e. holding a static position like planking) are more effective at lowering blood pressure than other types[0]. So relatively static exercises (slow moving, holding poses) are probably what you want for this purpose. I think this previous study is a bit more illuminating in general.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36884118

[riversflow]

Yoga has many styles. The one I am familiar with, Ashtanga Vinyasa, isn't very static at all.

[hosh]

It isn't the sequences or even the outward shape of Tai Chi so much as what is happening within the body that generates the shapes and sequences. There are long-term, transformative effect on the body. For example, my own musculature have developed structures you cannot develop through weight-lifting.

I can tell you for example, xingyiquan, baguazhang, bajiquan, wing chun, akijutsu (among many others) all (historically) share a common set of practice principles (yijinjing) with taijiquan, yet what ends up happening under the cover are vastly different. For example, at some level of practice, taijiquan is like working with a beach ball floating on water, but baguazhang is more like winding up wires in different planes of motion. Yet both share a smaller set of common principles.

Although the forms and sequences are now taught as foundations and the source of these changes, they are probably better taught as a capstone in which a practitioner builds up and constructs from primitives over the years of practice. There are some taijiquan practitioners who get into the art a lot deeper than the mainstream, and end up practicing holding specific taijiquan postures statically. (In fact, the historical taijiquan manuals shows the set of core postures, not necessarily the sequence of them).

[laeri]

What kind of structures did you develop that you can't get by weightlifting? I assume these are some kind of stabilizers that you train by some tai chi movements. If this is the case then it should also be possible to train these using a weightlifting regime with some specific movements targeting those stabilizers.

[hosh]

Not stabilizers. It’s a consequence of developing the capability to inflate and expand the muscles instead of movement through contraction. At some level of development, there are ridges that develop that are not conforming to muscle bundles that form from resistance training. Since weight lifting uses only contraction of muscles, it is impossible to develop these ridges I am talking about.

There are a lot of weird capabilities that can come out of it, but those ridges are probably the most obvious effect, yet it is among least documented yet observable effect when you go searching for things about tai chi or yijinjing.

[ThinkBeat]

> general stretching and mobility routine.

I disagree here.

Tai Chi is quite different from what most people will do with stretching. At least anyone I know or have seen exercising.

Just as Yoga is different than holding stretches. Both Tai Chi, Yoga, and Katas are somewhat similar, and they all incorporate stylized movements executed in particular sequences

Also, there is a part of them all to master the poses and movements and in longer sequences remembering it all and remembering corrections and more.

Ritual movements and poses perhaps.

When people stretch you know about how you do it and how to do it. It does not have the mastery and memory additions.

It does that but the discipline of what, how, how long and in what sequence separates it in practical terms.

[hosh]

Tai chi has a particular way of moving and developing the body that is distinctively different from yoga. However, there is a wide range of knowledge, skill level and practice principles within the tai chi community as it is with yoga. For example, the way hatha yoga is practiced in America is typically widely different from more traditional hatha yoga.

[xarope]

I have done a reasonable amount of Tai Chi (Yang and Chen style), as well as lots of stairs/jogging/walking/cycling (triathlons, mountaineering). The latter sports tend to be quite linear and in a single plane (sagital?), so perhaps moving the body in that extended, circular style of patterning in tai chi helps? However, I find that hiking long distances in varied terrain also gives me that level of meditative feeling, so YMMV.

Someone posted a video below, I noticed it was a Chen practitioner, which makes sense, since I feel the Chen style is more combative and science oriented, e.g. the body is not kept upright like in the other styles, but leans in the direction of force; there's emphasis on circular movement of the body (and not just the obvious hip movement like in karate) to generate force, and distal limbs or tools are then snapped at execution to impart that force.

[DennisP]

Also there was a recent study saying isometric exercise, such as wall sits, was better then aerobics at lowering blood pressure. If a tai chi form spends a lot of time holding low stances, that could play a part.

Zone-2 aerobics definitely has plenty of other benefits.