The Unintended Consequences of Too Much Tai Chi

I've always been an obsessive person. When I was 10 years old, I maxed out the hours in Pokémon Emerald. In my early teens, I carried a Rubik's Cube everywhere I went and solved it constantly, at the dinner table, on the bus, in the middle of conversations. In my late teens, it was video games. I played until the cows came home. In my early 20s, I was a gymbro, then I was a martial arts grappling bro with judo and Brazilian jiujitsu, then I was a yoga bro and taught yoga part time and thought about growing out my hair. It was always one thing after another. Never a mix of activities like a well adjusted person but one total obsession one after another after another.

The current one is tai chi. I know it is the last one I will do in this life. I do so much of it that I'm embarrassed to say the exact number. I do so much that people greet me with "How's tai chi?" instead of "How are you?" I do so much that my Chinese mother makes fun of me for being more Chinese than her. It is my full time job, my social life, my meditation practice, and my reason for getting out of bed. Sometimes people ask me what I do besides tai chi and I kinda stare at them blankly and wonder why they would ask me that. After countless hours, strange things have happened to me and continue to happen to me...

You lose your free time and stop missing it

The first thing to go is time. It goes both quickly and slowly. It goes without saying I spend all my free time doing it. I have no other hobbies. 4 hour classes are normal. You may wonder how you could even do tai chi for this long?? What am I even doing?? I spend hours moving my hips in slow circles and call it progress when the movement gets smaller and smaller until it's undetectable with the naked eye. I have a feeling I would be a decent dancer given the hip work alone but there's no time to find out because dance time could be tai chi time.

I repeat the same movement patterns over and over again. It looks like a slow dance sure and it may not look like much is happening on the outside but on the inside there is an entire universe of circles and semi circles and spirals everywhere. I partner up with elderly people and we connect into each other to test if our tai chi postures are good. Elderly people give the best feedback since they are more sensitive, perhaps from life, perhaps from practice (it's probably practice).

When people ask what I've been up to, there is only ever one answer. I do cook my own food, I do my own laundry, I read the occasional book, I go on walks in the park, all to pass the time between sessions. Honestly I stopped missing the other things I used to do. I used to wonder if I was missing out. Now I mostly feel relieved to have found the thing I actually want to do. I think everyone has a tai chi. I hope everyone finds it.

People think you're a bit strange

I get called not so nice names in my DMs. Teenagers laugh at me in the park. Strangers film me on their phones. None of it matters. The park is the best place to do tai chi and always will be regardless of what teenagers think.

In person, people are usually just politely dismissive. They ask a question or two to be courteous and then their eyes glaze over because they don't really want to know which is fine. The ones who actually want to know will have a glint in their eye and ask more curious questions. The ones who don't get it probably don't need to. Obsession is hard to explain. Sometimes I don't get it myself. "Why do you like tai chi so much?" or "What benefits do tai chi do for you?" or "What can tai chi do that the gym can't bro??" I get asked these questions and I give an answer that may or may not be that compelling but I just know. This sense of knowing is so powerful that to put it into words would be impossible.

I write about tai chi with obsession but in person I am actually quite chill about it. I don't think everyone should do it, in fact not everyone can do it. It's too boring for them or it's not high enough intensity or just silence makes their head feel too loud. My head feels empty in comparison. This may sound worrying and I worry myself sometimes but have concluded that it's fine. I have watched young people attend my class and run out the door during the standing meditation. I feel bad I couldn't prevent this but it is what it is. I should have warned them that the start is what I consider the hardest part. It doesn't get easier but you do change from the practice. You don't do tai chi, tai chi does you is a well known saying.

You become a magnet for elderly people

If you do enough tai chi, you will start to acquire the habits of an elderly person without realising it. I go to bed early and wake up early. I clasp my hands behind my back when I walk. I move through parks at a leisurely pace and notice the trees. The trees have started to speak to me. They give me tips on my zhan zhuang practice. When I am near one, the ground is uneven and this reminds me to keep my weighting in the right spot. Their communications are subtle but noticeable.

The best time to do tai chi is when you have time, but the second best time is dawn or dusk when yin and yang are in transition. Dawn is also when the elderly wake up, and since I am now elderly myself (I am 30 unc years old), other elderly people start appearing. I share the park space with them, we nod at each other in acknowledgment, and we understand implicitly that the morning belongs to a different kind of person. They still pinch my cheek though and they reminisce about the good old days and they give me advice that I won't listen to. They try to set me up with their granddaughters. They know every reliable plumber in the area and the best local restaurants that have no online presence whatsoever. I cannot recommend elderly people enough.

Your feet become a problem

At some point you will become unable to wear normal shoes. I wear barefoot shoes only. Yes I am aware they look like clown shoes but my feet are wide and so are everyone else's feet. Every step becomes a small sensory experience. You feel every pebble and every uneven crack in the footpath. It hurts sometimes but sometimes it hurts good. It also feels correct in a way that is hard to articulate. Something about being in contact with the ground.

In tai chi there is a lot of emphasis on rooting, the idea that stability comes up from below rather than bracing or holding yourself up. Once you feel that properly, cushioned soles start to feel like interference like you're wrapping your feet in plastic wrap. I think about my feet a lot while walking and in general. They are sensitive. I have unfortunately become a feet guy. They really are your second hands.

It changes you in unexpected ways

Going back to tai chi doing you instead of you doing tai chi, there is a principle in tai chi: great hardness is overcome with great softness. You absorb force rather than meet it. You never meet it head on. You redirect it. After enough time practising this, it all happens automatically. The more they push, the less resistance they find. There is a flow in life you follow. Sometimes you do nothing, sometimes you do some yangmaxxing. Finding the balance between the two is what life is about and tai chi is a great tool for this.

Touch changes too. Casual physical contact starts to feel like information. A handshake, a hug. You can feel where someone's weight is, where their balance point is, whether they are holding tension somewhere. You could uproot them. You don't of course, you just smile and release, but you know you could which is kinda funny.

You are comfortable with prolonged eye contact. Your eyes full of intention become very intense sometimes so you gotta act normal and look away sometimes. I spent so much time on the tube just standing there. I could sit and read a book or something but I just stand there in wuji, not holding on to anything, not thinking about anything in particular and just focusing on staying still. If I can stand on public transport I can do tai chi anywhere!

Everything becomes tai chi

This is perhaps the strangest consequence and also the most useful one. You stop being able to do ordinary things in an ordinary way. Carrying a bag: sink the shoulders. Opening a door: spiral push. Opening a jar: relax on to the lid. You lift groceries with correct structure. You push a kid on a swing and they go much further than intended.

Tai chi jargon bleeds in to my daily conversations. You tell friends they need to start yinmaxxing. You describe people as double-weighted. You threaten to go full yang mode. Nobody knows what you're talking about except the trees. The trees get it.

And then there's the family. They ask how karate is going. They do a judo chop. You explain that it's more like yoga, Chinese yoga. They start calling it choga. They ask if you've been doing your choga lately. They chant choga choga choga like they are looking at an amusing animal in the zoo and that's fine. I just laugh with them. It is pretty funny how much I enjoy tai chi.

Half of what I wrote here is made up... or is it? Only one way to find out!

Do tai chi at your own risk!

Written 17th May 2026