Tai chi's renewing power.

In the seamless movements of Tai Chi Chuan, weight pours from one foot to the other like water. One movement gives way to the next, and the end becomes the beginning in a continuous flow. The knees are slightly bent, the chest is relaxed, and the torso shifts along with the curving arm motions. The constant demi-plie position may take some getting used to, but a good teacher will emphasize the floating of the pelvis over the knees, which is actually protective of these vulnerable joints.

Tai Chi looks like an abstract dance, but each move has an application in the art of combat. The names of sequences like "snake creeps down" and "white crane spreads wings" orient one in both a natural and symbolic environment. Although the actual sequence, or "form," varies according to the style, the basic principles of a low center of gravity and fluid motion remain the same. Practicing the form in slow motion allows a deeper level of knowing. But don't be fooled by the super slow tempo. The highest-level Tai Chi masters can fling their opponents across the room in a flash.

Tai Chi as a technique extends beyond its original goal of defeating the opponent (it was developed in China a thousand years ago based on a philosophy developed 2,000 years earlier), and dancers have discovered the benefits of regular practice. "Tai Chi has given me the ability to be clearer in the movement choices I make," says choreographer David Appel, who began training in Tai Chi in the Yang Style in 1977. Appel, who also has taught Tai Chi, finds the work profound in its application of shifting weight, balance, and the interplay of stability and mobility. "Tai Chi can be an excellent vehicle for self-understanding," he says. "The progression of the form stays the same, but how we encounter it each day changes. Things are always different, and you can decide what you're going to do about it--struggle with it, ride it, or play with it." For Appel as a performer, Tai Chi helps develop subtlety, precision, and presence.

Martha Wittman, a dancer/choreographer with the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, found the Chen form of Tai Chi a means to restore her energy while teaching at Bennington College. One of her Tai Chi teachers, Al Huang (a former dancer and author of the book Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain: The Essence of Tai Ji), emphasized that Tai Chi is a dance. She finds it a good warm-up for everything and practices it first thing in the morning. "I feel that energy coming into the body," says Wittman, "and it gives the day a good start." The concept of "stepping empty" (all the weight is on the standing foot before beginning the transfer) is useful as both an energetic and poetic idea. "There's a sense of opening space in the body to allow energy to move through," says Wittman. "I become less anxious about whatever I am working on." She still warms up with the brushes and swings of modern dance, but Tai Chi reminds her to not go at things so hard. One of her favorite exercises is "Walking on thin ice," a weight transfer so slow and subtle that the ground surface is minimally disturbed. "Curiously," she says, "it warms up my legs."

For downtown choreographer Daria Fain, Tai Chi opened the door to Chinese philosophy. As a young dancer in the '80s, she studied the Wu style. Her teacher told her to go into the woods and imitate nature. "I was inspired by connecting to the environment, which is always present in Chinese thinking," says Fain. "Today my work is based on the theory of Chinese energetics." For more than a decade she had studied the integration of meditation, healing, and martial arts. She teaches her teacher Mantak Chia's Tai Chi-Chi Kung techniques, and uses her own integration of this work in her movement approach.

Continuity, balance, and flow are all qualities useful to dancers at any stage of their careers. Tapping into the grounding qualities of Tai Chi can ease the stress of hectic schedules and the daily rigors of a professional life. Perhaps dancers also relate to the survival instinct that lies at the core of this ancient art.

Nancy Wozny is a Houston-based arts and somatics writer.