Why Do Chen Style Tai Chi?

When I meet new students for the first time, whether in a class, workshop, retreat, or private training, they often ask me this question: “Why do Chen style tai chi?”

Rather than give them a list of reasons, I suggest they ask themselves this question. I do not want them to answer verbally, but rather to write down their reasons in their tai chi notebook. Then, after practicing for a month, six months, a year, to go back and once again ask, “Why do Chen style tai chi?” And note how their reasons evolve and change.

In my 57 years of daily practice, I have asked myself this question many times. And the answer has never been the same twice. What brought me to this art at 15 years old, riding my bike around Miami looking for a martial arts school, is not what keeps me practicing every morning at sunrise today. The art deepens. And as it deepens, so do your reasons for practicing it.

That evolution is one of the most important things I can tell you about Chen style tai chi. It is not a 10-week program with a fixed set of benefits at the end. It is a lifetime study in which you can always learn more, go deeper, and develop every aspect of your life, physically, mentally, and spiritually. For a complete overview of what Chen style tai chi is and how it works, see our Complete Guide to Chen Style Tai Chi. The reasons you have for starting are just the beginning of a conversation that will last the rest of your life.

Why Chen Style Tai Chi is a Martial Art First

Because Chen style tai chi is a martial art, it must fulfill two functions. Not one, not three, but two specific functions, for your entire lifetime:

It must be beneficial for health and healing for your whole lifetime. And it must be effective for self defense for your whole lifetime.

Most people’s reasons for learning tai chi fall within these two areas, or a combination of both. If a martial art does not fulfill both of these functions, it is worth putting aside and finding one that does.

What makes Chen style tai chi unique is that the original training methods set down by the Chen family are one and the same for both functions. There is no separation between training for health and training for self defense. One training method serves both purposes simultaneously. This is what makes it a complete system rather than a specialized one.

In this article, we will focus primarily on the health and healing benefits of Chen style tai chi, because for most people reading this, that is where the journey begins. The self defense dimension is real and profound, and we address it in depth elsewhere. But health is the reason most people find their way to tai chi, and it deserves a thorough explanation.

Why Chen Style Tai Chi is So Good for Your Health

We hear a great deal about the health benefits of tai chi. Research from Harvard Medical School, the Mayo Clinic, and institutions around the world has documented its effects on dozens of conditions. But the more important question is not what the benefits are, but why tai chi produces them. Understanding the mechanism is what allows you to practice intelligently and get the most from every session.

Chen style tai chi works on the body through four primary pathways, each of which addresses a different system and produces different but complementary results.

The Nervous System

When practicing tai chi, great emphasis is placed on relaxation and the conscious release of tension from every part of the body and mind. This has a direct and profound effect on the nervous system, specifically on the autonomic nervous system’s parasympathetic branch, what is commonly called the rest and recovery system.

Most modern people spend the majority of their days in a state of sympathetic activation, the fight or flight response, driven by work pressure, screen time, poor sleep, and the accumulated stress of daily life. This chronic low-level activation has consequences throughout the body, elevated blood pressure, impaired digestion, disrupted sleep, weakened immunity, and accelerated aging.

The regular practice of Chen style tai chi, with its emphasis on deep relaxation, focused breathing, and slow intentional movement, systematically shifts the nervous system toward parasympathetic dominance. The nerves calm. The whole body follows, because every organ, gland, muscle, and tissue is controlled by the nervous system. When the nervous system relaxes, everything relaxes. This is not a metaphor. It is basic physiology, and it is why practitioners consistently report better sleep, reduced anxiety, and a calmer baseline state after even a few weeks of consistent practice.

For a detailed exploration of this mechanism, see our article on The Tai Chi Nervous System Connection.

The Musculoskeletal System

As a Doctor of Chiropractic with 35 years of clinical practice, the musculoskeletal benefits of Chen style tai chi are where I have the most direct professional experience. I prescribed specific tai chi movements to patients with back pain, knee pain, arthritis, and chronic joint injuries throughout my chiropractic career. What I observed consistently was that patients who practiced the movements I gave them healed faster and required fewer treatments. Eventually, I left clinical practice entirely to teach tai chi full time, because I found it more effective at addressing the root causes of musculoskeletal problems than any treatment I could offer in the clinic.

The mechanism is elegant. Chen style tai chi’s continuously spiraling movements, called silk reeling, increase vital energy and blood circulation throughout the body while placing the joints through their full range of motion in a smooth, controlled, non-impact way. The constant opening and closing movements of the joints restore synovial fluid production, which lubricates joint cartilage and reverses the degenerative process that leads to arthritis.

Unlike conventional exercise, which tends to move joints in straight lines and angles, silk reeling moves every joint in spirals and circles. This is biomechanically superior for joint health. It distributes load evenly across the joint surface, prevents the uneven wear patterns that cause cartilage breakdown, and maintains full range of motion well into advanced age. I have seen patients arrive with chronic conditions that conventional medicine had been unable to resolve, and watch those conditions improve steadily through consistent practice.

For more on how tai chi addresses arthritis specifically, see our article on Tai Chi for Arthritis.

The Cardiopulmonary System

Tai chi’s deep, slow breathing and gentle flowing movements cultivate deep relaxation while simultaneously increasing oxygenation to all tissues in the body. The effect on blood pressure is well documented in clinical research, with regular practice producing reductions comparable to low-dose medication in many studies, but without side effects and with cumulative benefits over time rather than dependence.

The large sweeping postures of Chen style tai chi, particularly the deep stances and wide movements of the legs, provide thorough exercise for the large muscle groups of the lower body. These large muscles act as a peripheral pump for the cardiovascular system, and working them through the full range of motion of the tai chi form massages and strengthens the heart more effectively than many conventional cardiovascular exercises, while placing none of the impact stress on the joints that running and other high-impact activities produce.

The breathing method in Chen style tai chi, which coordinates the breath with the opening and closing movements of the form, also directly improves lung capacity and efficiency over time. Practitioners with respiratory conditions including asthma and COPD consistently report improvement with regular practice.

The Immune System

The continuous flowing movements of the tai chi form massage the lymph nodes throughout the body, stimulating lymphatic drainage and circulation. The lymphatic system, unlike the cardiovascular system, has no central pump. It relies entirely on body movement and muscle contraction for circulation. This means that sedentary lifestyles directly impair immune function, and movement that engages the whole body in a continuous, flowing way is among the most effective methods for supporting lymphatic health.

Combined with the nervous system calming effect described above, which directly reduces the cortisol and stress hormones that suppress immune function, the immune benefits of regular Chen style tai chi practice are substantial and cumulative. Long-term practitioners consistently report fewer colds and infections, faster recovery from illness, and a general resilience that their peers who do not practice do not share.

Tai Chi is Not Just for Old People

Tai chi is often portrayed as a gentle form of exercise for the elderly. This is simply not true, and it is one of the most persistent and damaging misconceptions about the art.

During my years training in Chenjiagou, Chen Family Village, the historical birthplace of tai chi, I observed that everyone practices tai chi on a daily basis, from the youngest children to the oldest elders. I was especially moved by the tai chi children of Chen Village. From infancy, they observe the elders practicing every day. By the time they can stand, they are already mimicking the movements. Within a few years, they demonstrate a quality of skill that seems impossible for their age.

At the other end of the spectrum, I watched elders in their eighties and nineties practicing every morning with full range of motion, upright posture, and evident joy. You cannot say this about most Western sports. Football, basketball, long-distance running, weightlifting, these activities tend to produce impressive athletic results in the short term and significant physical damage in the long term. The medical profession now has an entire specialty called sports medicine, which tells you everything you need to know about what those sports do to the body over time.

Chen style tai chi does the opposite. It builds the body progressively and maintains it for life. Here is what the practice offers at every stage:

For Children

Physical coordination, balance, and body awareness develop rapidly through tai chi training in young children. Beyond the physical, the practice builds concentration, self control, self discipline, and respect for oneself and others in ways that translate directly into academic performance and social development. Children who train in tai chi develop confidence rooted in genuine skill, not comparison with others, because tai chi is not competitive. The only standard is your own previous performance.

For Teenagers

The teenage years are when most people are most vulnerable to the social pressures that erode self-worth. Tai chi builds self-esteem from the inside out, through the direct experience of developing a genuine skill that deepens with practice. The mental discipline of daily training, the focus required by the form, and the physical confidence that comes with developing real martial ability create a foundation that serves young people throughout their lives.

For Adults in Their Prime

For adults in their twenties, thirties, and forties, Chen style tai chi provides a complete system for maintaining optimal health, managing the stress that this stage of life typically produces in abundance, and developing a practice that will serve them increasingly well as they age. The adults who find tai chi in their prime and commit to it are the ones who look and feel dramatically different from their peers by the time they reach their sixties.

For Adults in Later Life

For those who come to tai chi later, often after other physical activities have become difficult or painful, the practice offers something remarkable. It can reverse many of the symptoms we have been taught to accept as normal aging, chronic pain, stiffness, poor balance, reduced range of motion, and low energy. I have watched students arrive in their fifties and sixties barely able to move without pain, and within months of consistent practice be doing things with their bodies they had not done in decades. The phrase I hear most often from these students is: “I wish I had started this when I was young.”

For Everyone

Regardless of age, background, health status, or fitness level, the regular practice of Chen style tai chi cultivates deep relaxation of body and mind, mental clarity, emotional balance, and a quality of health and vitality that most people have been told they cannot expect after a certain age. The practice does not decline with the practitioner. It deepens. And the depth available is genuinely unlimited.

Your Reasons Will Change

I want to return to where we began, because I think it is the most important thing I can say.

When people start tai chi, they usually come for one specific reason. Stress. Back pain. A desire to learn self defense. Curiosity about Chinese philosophy. A doctor’s recommendation. Whatever it is, that reason gets them through the door. And it is a good enough reason. Any reason that gets you started is the right reason.

But within months, something begins to happen. The reason you came for starts to feel smaller than what you are receiving. You came for your back pain and you find your sleep has transformed. You came for stress relief and you find yourself moving through conflicts at work and at home with a calm you did not have before. You came for self defense and you find that the deeper self defense is against the internal enemies, tension, reactivity, fear, that diminish the quality of your daily life.

My first tai chi teacher, Mr. Chow Chian Chiu, of the Wu style tai chi, was asked in an interview many years ago, when he was in his eighties, whether tai chi was really effective as a martial art. This was his answer:

“You can live your whole life without ever having to fight. But every day you need good health. Do you understand?”

When we are young, we are not thinking about our old age. When we practice tai chi each day, we are already preparing for our later years. Every practice session is an investment in the person you will be at 60, 70, 80, and beyond.

So the question again: why do Chen style tai chi? Consider it often as your skill grows. Your answer will deepen along with your practice. That is not a promise I make lightly. It is something I have lived every day for 57 years.

To go deeper into everything Chen style tai chi offers, start with our Complete Guide to Chen Style Tai Chi.

If you are ready to begin, explore our Start Here page for guidance on taking the first steps, or join us in Costa Rica for an immersive introduction to authentic Chen style tai chi training.

Frequently Asked Questions About Why People Practice Chen Style Tai Chi

Is Chen style tai chi better than yoga for health?

They are different systems with different strengths. Yoga emphasizes flexibility, breath, and stillness. Chen style tai chi emphasizes the cultivation of internal power, joint health through spiral movement, and the simultaneous development of health and self defense ability. Many practitioners, including myself, have practiced both for decades and find them complementary. If forced to choose one, I would choose Chen style tai chi for its completeness as a system for lifelong health and martial development.

How long before I see real health benefits from practicing Chen style tai chi?

Most people notice changes in how they feel, reduced tension, better sleep, a calmer nervous system, within the first few weeks of consistent daily practice. More significant changes, joint health improvement, postural changes, reduction in chronic pain, typically become noticeable within three to six months. The practice continues to deliver new benefits for as long as you continue. At 57 years in, I am still discovering new dimensions of what it offers.

Can older adults start Chen style tai chi even if they are not fit?

Yes, absolutely. Chen style tai chi is one of the most accessible practices available to older adults precisely because it does not require any baseline level of fitness to begin. The movements can be adapted to any physical condition, and the practice meets you exactly where you are. I have taught students in their seventies and eighties who arrived with significant physical limitations and watched them develop genuine skill and dramatically improved health over time.

Do I need to be interested in martial arts to practice Chen style tai chi?

No. The vast majority of people who practice Chen style tai chi today do so primarily for health, stress relief, and the quality of mind and body that comes from a serious daily practice. The martial foundation is what makes the art complete and what ensures the health benefits are genuine rather than superficial. But you do not need to have any interest in fighting or self defense to benefit fully from the practice.