Why Women Are Better Than Men at Tai Chi (Updated)

In honour of International Women's Day yesterday, I wanna tell you about why women are generally better than men at tai chi when they first start. I taught a gym class yesterday and was told it was a special IWD class but two guys showed up and since I didn't wanna be discouraging in their first class I didn't say anything. Here is what I was gonna say.

Tai chi is touch based. You can do it by yourself but to truly learn you must do it with others too. This is done through partner work: you pair up and test each other's postures. One person holds a position and weight shifts from foot to foot. The other person pushes in with constant force. The person "doing tai chi" learns to take force without bracing. And this is where it starts to get interesting...

Less Likely to Muscle Through

Women are less likely to muscle through technique. Paradoxically in tai chi, the less tense and less muscle you use, the more force you can take. I like to think of it as the opposite of the gym. In the gym, you tense your muscles to lift the weights. In tai chi you do the opposite. And since I teach in a gym sometimes, I've noticed men often don't know their own strength. They push and when they push they push HARD. Of course they can push me hard if they want but they shouldn't push their training buddies this hard! Since they won't make friends!

And also just like how you shouldn't walk into a gym as a novice and load the barbell with every plate in sight, you don't full force push into someone and expect them to relax. Humans instinctually tense when someone shoves them. Tai chi is training that instinct away. It's training to relax in the face of controlled adversity. It takes time but with enough time things happen that don't make sense. It looks like pure magic. And when you see it you may get hooked like I did ahahah!

Intention (Yi)

So women tend to carry less muscle mass. In tai chi, this is an advantage! What they lack in strength they make up for with intention, also known as yi. Intention shows up in all kinds of sports and physical activities. In basketball the basketball guy wants the ball in the basket, in football they want the ball in the back of the net, in dancing the lead makes movements that suggest how their partner follows. It's everywhere and probably in everything! The mind wants to do something and you will it into existence.

It's the same in tai chi. When someone pushes into you, you will not be pushed. You stand strong, use your intention and redirect them. You don't use more strength, you use the single pointed focus of your mind! It's why I tell new students not to close their eyes! Your intention is directed by your gaze. Look through someone, to the back of the room, and your movement becomes stronger. Women start with more intention because they have less strength to fall back on.

Better Listeners

Women are also better listeners, the talking kind and the body sensitivity kind. Once brute strength is out of the picture, sensitivity to the lightest touch is what you're building towards. There's good evidence that women pay closer attention to bodily sensations and are better at making sense of what those sensations mean. They are more attuned and more willing to notice. There's a saying in tai chi: "miss by an inch, miss by a thousand miles." Tai chi is precise. If a posture is incorrect it might just be that your left hand needs to move an inch to the right or your left shoulder is just a millimetre up when it should be down.

How do you know if a posture is correct? By testing it. Since women are more attentive body listeners they give better feedback. If you used too much strength, if you're too tense, if something is off but you can't put your finger on it, they know what's up. That's an invaluable thing in partner work.

Learning Through Feel

Then there's the way women actually learn. When something isn't working, they adjust based on how it feels. In general men tend to stand there and analyse, what's the angle, what's the mechanics, what's the theory behind this. And in tai chi that's often the slower road.

What! What! What!

Why? Why? Why?

Just do it!!

The body understands before the mind catches up. Tai chi isn't figured out by thinking about it all day. It's absorbed through repetition and feel. A student who trusts the sensation will often get somewhere faster than one who needs to intellectually solve it first. This isn't a knock on analytical thinking, it has its place, but tai chi rewards people who can surrender to the process before they understand it.

Less Obsessed With Winning

The last point I wanna make is men and winning. Who doesn't love a winner?? In general men are more competitive and while you can technically "win" at partner testing, that's not the point. The point is mutual learning. Tai chi is a long path. It takes years to get competent and the more you do the more you realise how big tai chi mountain actually is. I don't say this to dissuade you, I say it because there's something exciting about realising how much there is to discover!

Tai chi doesn't care if you win. You win when both you and your partner learn something. A rising tide lifts all boats. The more everyone around you knows, the stronger you become. You're always learning. And the best way to learn is to fail, again and again. Invest in the loss and that's when you gain the most. It's very Daoist and I love it.

All That Said...

All that said, I'm not saying men can't get good at tai chi. The ones that stick with it can develop real depth by doing things that may not come naturally to them. And women have their own mountain to climb, softness is a starting point, not a destination, and the yang side of tai chi takes real work to develop too. Men have an advantage there. Men and women complement each other in partner practice and need to train together.

I was always told by my teachers to train with little old ladies. I never asked why but now I understand...

Written 9th March 2026