This document is based on classes presented by Dr Tennyson Yiu at the Tai Chi College of Australia, since March 1998. It includes the complete form, with corresponding notes about the techniques, health benefits, application and related philosophy, legend and history. It is with great pride, honor and fulfillment that I write this document. I cannot thank Dr Yiu enough for being such a wonderful teacher, for his lifelong dedication to the art and especially for sharing literally all of its enriching and everlasting values and benefits with us all. Without Dr Yiu these pages would be empty.

Tai Chi Chuan means the grand ultimate or supreme form of exercise. Yiu Style Tai Chi is based on Sun Style (being one of the four most popular Tai Chi schools in Chinese history), founded by Sun Lu-Tang (1861-1932). Lau Kam Tong later headed the Sun school in Hong Kong. Tennyson (Tien Sun) Yiu is a disciple of Lau Kam Tong, and is honored to have received full private tuition from him. Lau Kam Tong suffered from throat cancer later in life and has now passed away.

Dr Yiu has spent many years practising, analysing, teaching and refining this art. He has enhanced and perfected it, never swaying from the principles and philosophy upon which it is based. The movements of this style are natural, flowing and relaxing, creating a deep sense of inner harmony between the mind (yang) and the body (yin). This style is extremely soft, gentle and meditative making it suitable for all ages and especially apt to the busy, rushed and stressed lifestyle of current times. The motivation in doing this style of Tai Chi is to learn how to do deep breathing. Although the form seems basic it is nevertheless extremely meditative because the nature of the movements concentrate on calming the mind and warming the body. Through deep breathing the body is allowed time to re-adjust, rest and sink before doing the next move. Therefore the energy flow is uninterrupted and more complete.

Tai Chi is about internal strength and is based on very profound Taoist philosophy and wisdom as found in the I Ching and the writings of Lao Tsu and Chuang Tsu. To learn Tai Chi without the philosophy and its history is like learning Tai Chi in black and white rather than in colour. Yin and Yang is the greatest philosophy of all, the beginning of the universe, two opposite particles, which evolve into the 8 Trigrams.

	Heaven/Ch'ien	Block/Peng
	Earth/K'un	Drag/Lu
	Water/K'an	Press/Chai
	Fire/Li	Push/An
	Thunder/Chen	Inward Wipe/Lieh
	Wind/Sun	Pull Down/Tsai
	Lake/Tui	Elbow Strike/Chou
	Mountain/Ken	Shoulder Strike/Kuo
Thompson and Yiu - Jack Thompson Introduces Tai Chi with Tennyson Yiu

Tai Chi is what life is all about. In doing Tai Chi we aim to continuously improve ourselves, maintaining brain creativity and a supple body, just as the universe is forever in motion. To do this we must move in a circular way, with minimum effort, yet maximum return. When you do Tai Chi the flow of energy mirrors that of the universe. The stars and celestial bodies are continuously moving. Human beings need to replicate the perpetual motion of the heavenly bodies in their minds and movement. For the energy to flow properly the knees must be bent and the mind must be with the thought, directing the energy. In Tai Chi, when one part of the body moves the other parts follow. If the body moves in a circular way and the arms spiral and twist, the hands will begin to feel warmer. Energy is conserved and yet the blood is forced to travel a longer distance as a result of the circular and spiral movement.

The secret to Tai Chi is seeking tranquillity in motion, which is represented by the pause between movements and breathing. When we pause we build little moments of calmness and so, as one practises the set they create more and more calmness through the consistent pausing.

Tai Chi is a long-term discipline and once you have learnt it you must keep practising it in order to achieve its benefits and results. By repeating what is good you will get positive results but you must keep practising. Positive actions lead to positive results. With regular practice, Tai Chi develops the self on three capacities (physical, mental and spiritual). Physically it improves your heath. Mentally it gives you peace of mind and clears the head. Spiritually it gives you wisdom of the soul. Without exercising our spiritual capacity our life seems incomplete. Tai Chi is about the body, energy, the mind and the spirit.

The basic requirement of Tai Chi is 36 movements. The 108 moves are made up of 3 sub sets of 36 movements. Heaven (set 1), Human Beings (sets 2 and 3) and Earth (sets 4,5,6).

Human beings are spiritual, mental and emotional beings and are ultimately looking for happiness and love. We do however tend to be governed by our emotions and feelings, which are based on the mind. Therefore one cannot find happiness unless the mind is content. A happy person always has a clear head. Tai Chi trains the body, the mind and the spirit and helps to soothe and dissolve emotions by leading the mind to a higher level of consciousness, making you more in touch with yourself, relaxed and easy going. Tai Chi makes the chemistry in the brain more balanced. When you are in a state of higher consciousness you have beautiful thoughts and are able to enjoy life more despite the situation. That is, our thoughts are less likely to be effected by the different situations that present themselves in our every day lives. Tai Chi tames the mind making you more loving, caring and compassionate rather than selfish and greedy which tends to be the cause of our own suffering. The technique of mindfulness is when the mind is with the body. "Wild Horse" is a reminder of the untamed human mind.

Tai Chi gives us wisdom and insight. The action of the moves make you feel better in consciousness, calming the mind which in turn gives you insight. Wisdom can be seen as not reacting to the external and not allowing a situation to be effected by our emotions and the way we feel. It is best to look and attempt to deal with problems when you are peaceful and relaxed. Never attack problems when the spirit is low, do Tai Chi first to raise the spirit and then deal with the situation. By not accepting change we suffer. Tai Chi teaches us to flow with the ever changing world and that everything we experience has a quality of change. What then is the point of getting angry if that emotion will pass anyway? Tai Chi builds character making you more patient, calm, tolerant and virtuous. By going inwards and becoming more in touch with yourself, you find the answers you are looking for in life. The more we train on this spiritual level the more permanent our happiness is and the more stable we are.

Tai Chi cultivates the mind and the body but this requires patience and persistence as change and progress for the Tai Chi practitioner is gradual. If you are patient everything develops and works out. The mind is also related to energy . That is, when the mind is happy energy is abundant when the mind is negative or unhappy energy is low. Energy in the body has three levels. The stored energy in the body is said to be thick and includes such things as nutrition, hormones and essential fluid. When this thick energy is lacking in the body you feel tired. Deep breathing has the ability to warm this stored energy, mobilising the thick energy, making it thinner and able to circulate. Once this thin energy starts to travel it is called "chi "flow, which has a healing effect.

It is difficult to appreciate the physical health benefits of regular Tai Chi training. When you are young the body is fit, everything works as it should, the organs function well. As you get older though the body deteriorates. Many people after about the age of 50 years start to forget things more regularly, the body has the potential to start getting weaker, including the legs, bladder, spine and neck.

• People suffer from arthritis because of poor energy flow and blood not circulating as it should. The blood circulates less with colder weather.
• Poor circulation through the lungs makes fluid get trapped there (mucus). The body tries to free up the constricted lung by coughing up phlegm.
• When the energy flow isn't good in the liver you get tired. Also, because the liver nourishes the tendons as we get older we can't stretch as much as the tendons shrink.

We are all vulnerable to these problems and so we need a discipline that can overcome them. Tai Chi is such a discipline but to keep the mind and body strong you must train them now. The founder of the school Sun Lu Tang understood that life is indeed precious and used to go to the tombs and just sit there reminding himself that life is short.

Tai Chi is good for you from the inside out, creating new pathways and networks to the brain making the mind feel calmer and calmer until ultimately you feel serene. It teaches us to relax and go inwards. When you are serene things seem to stand still and you can see what is happening around you and that things are forever changing. Through Tai Chi you gain wisdom and learn to understand and foresee the consequences of your actions. Ultimately your mind is free of habitual prejudices and is no longer controlled by the external. With such inner strength you can respond to the external with wisdom.

Ideally Tai Chi should be practised for a minimum of 45 minutes daily (an advanced practitioner would take approximately 45 minutes to complete the six sets of Yiu Style twice in a row). After that sit down quietly for 10 to 15 minutes and enjoy the relaxation, peace of mind and serenity (it is said that one in four days the mind truly opens and you will feel tranquillity). After continuous daily practise for about seven years you will discover and understand that life is not permanent, and that all things in life are interdependent. That is, for every cause there is an effect (positive actions have a positive effect, doing things that are bad for you have a negative effect). The law of nature is change, nothing stays the same all of the time, to know this is wisdom (we are born, we live and we die). Wisdom means not reacting to situations as they arise. Emptiness means no thoughts, freedom of the mind. Spend time now doing Tai Chi to save time later! Enjoy life now!

Tai Chi keeps the body supple.

Yiu Style Tai Chi is extremely good for you because it allows you time to breathe deeply and concentrate on the lower abdomen. It is focussed on meditation (a walking meditation). That is seeking the Yin in the Yang (relative inaction, in action). This is reflected through the breathing of Yiu Style, that is breathing in gently but deep, holding the breath (pause) and then breathing out. Expanding and contracting the lower abdomen, naturally. Breathe in and expand the lower abdomen. Hold the breath. Breathe out and contract the lower abdomen. Therefore one respiration in Tai Chi has three parts (beginning - breathe in), (middle - hold/pause), (end - breathe out). Holding the breath is most important as it helps to automatically send energy up the spine, which, in turn nourishes the head, relaxes the subcortex, calms the mind and assists the nervous system in working better. Holding the breath and waiting for the energy to come up is called "energy integration". It is important to keep the knees bent as this helps the breathing to be deeper more naturally.

The abdomen is the centre of energy flow. Deep breathing to the lower abdomen keeps the oxygen in the bloodstream longer, improving blood flow through the body and exercising your internal organs.

Basically breathing in Tai Chi warms the body, making the blood circulate better, circulating heat around the organs and the limbs. It is this heat and circulation through the body that nourishes and lifts the organs, unblocks the rubbish inside, burning the cholesterol in the blood vessels. As we get older the body tends to feel colder, Tai Chi however makes your insides warmer, the long term implication of this being that you will probably live longer. Our stored energy is also dependent, on the food that we eat. Ideally drink plenty of water and eat lots of fresh fruit, vegetables and seafood.

When our breathing is deep we are calmer and more relaxed.

Breathing in Tai Chi is also related to the Buddhist philosophy of impermanence that all things arise, stay and pass away/disappear. In Tai Chi when we breathe in, we expand the lower abdomen (the abdomen arises), we hold the breath (the abdomen stays expanded) then we breathe out and contract the lower abdomen (it disappears). The same applies to our thoughts and emotions, they come, they stay and then they go.

The key to both the breathing techniques and the movements in Tai Chi is to be able to keep the mind totally focussed on them and so the mind directs the breathing and the energy flow. The mind creates a thought, which then mobilises the energy flow, and then the body will move. In Tai Chi thoughts are beautiful and connected with nature. If you are aware of nature you will flow with nature and the more you are with nature the happier you are. When the mind creates a thought and there is stored energy in the lower abdomen the energy will flow as directed by the thought. Tai Chi is not about how fast you go but rather how relaxed you are so that your mind is in control and still. Persistent practice will allow the flow of your breathing and movement to become more and more natural as each day passes as well as greatly improving your health and internal strength.

Sun Lu Tang was a master of both Hsing - I and Pa Kua (the other internal schools) before developing his own style of Tai Chi, which incorporates elements of both Hsing - I and Pa Kua. Sun was an expert in continuous thought; this is most specifically demonstrated in "Jade Lady with the Shuttle".

This style of Tai Chi is characterised by its footwork, one leg moving at a time followed by the other leg. By bending the knees you create a strong stance so that you cannot be uprooted. This in turn strengthens the legs, the spine and the neck.

The footwork of this style is linked with the breathing also. That is, when you move backwards you breathe in and when you move forwards you breathe out. Also by bending the knees the breathing is naturally deeper.

Kicking in other styles of Tai Chi (Chen, Yang, and Wu) has tended to be difficult and unnecessarily complicated in terms of the position of hands or fists for the various kicks. Sun however, simplified the kicking and so the fighting of the style became more poetic. By the time Sun Style was famous Sun was 60 years old. He was very wise and recognised that there was no philosophical reason for the positioning of the hands with the kicks. Sun kept the kicking simple; for example, the right hand is always above the left hand before you open the hands to the kick, regardless of which leg you are kicking with. Most kicks in this style are heel kicks keeping the style simple without disturbing the principles of the movement. The heel kicks in set 3 are wonderful for your health improving blood circulation around the bladder, groin and legs.

The basic principle of movement of this style is leg, body hands, and leg. When doing Tai Chi it is important to understand how the energy is travelling through the body and to keep the mind focussed on these pathways. There are a number of energy pathways but the two major ones are as follows:

• Yin Path - for example in Cloud Hands energy travels from the inside of the left leg to the lower abdomen and down the inside of the right leg and then reverses travelling up the inside of the right leg to the lower abdomen and down the inside of the left leg.
• Yang path - for example in Fire (push) energy travels up the back of the legs to the tailbone, up the spine to the shoulders and finally to the hands as you push.

When doing Tai Chi energy comes from the lower abdomen (Dan Tien) which is why you are always sinking yet keeping the body straight. Hormones are a form of stored energy (essential fluid). Dry skin for example (as opposed to lustrous shiny skin) suggests that essential fluid in the body is low and not circulating or flowing properly. Also, menstruation extracts hormones and essential fluids from the body. Tai Chi transports the energy to the organs but first there must be stored energy in the lower abdomen. If you practise Tai Chi everyday eventually you will feel heat in the lower abdomen and once you have this stored energy you can then transport it through the body to heal yourself (active healing).

Lao Tsu also says that water is ever flowing. So too should be the blood flow through the human body.

The Tai Chi salute is based on history philosophy. In particular the history of the Red Faced General, Guan Kung, who is remembered for saying that across the universe we are all brothers and sisters, that is, we are all equal. It is said that when the Red Face General captured the emperor of the enemy he demonstrated his brotherhood by letting the emperor go rather than cutting his head off. In essence the salute symbolises aspects of Chinese culture, including respect, humility and politeness.

When you raise the hands, palms facing up to shoulder level, this symbolises and reminds us that we are all equal. A very polite and welcoming posture.

The right hand then forms a fist, the left hand is a palm. The right fist represents the Sun and the left palm the Moon. Together Sun and Moon represent happiness, brightness and prosperity. As you bring the two hands into the chest and press out again (still as palm and fist) you are wishing other people happiness.

Finally when the two hands return to the waist and you bow this is to show further respect and politeness to those present and acknowledge that life is a gift and that all life should be treasured. When the two hands press down it suggests peace.

To learn the physical movements of the form alone takes quite some time, depending on how often lessons are conducted and how regularly students practise. Remember not to teach too much too fast. Tai Chi is not about how much you know.

It is not practical to teach any of the six sets sequentially from beginning to end. It best to create little sections and circuits within each set that are performable and continuously repeatable in themselves yet still provide the benefits of deep breathing, exercising the body from the inside out and calming the mind. This benefits and encourages the student as they have something complete to practise and therefore can reap the rewards of a discipline, which trains the body, mind and spirit. It is also beneficial for the teacher in terms of being able to direct how other movements are joined in.