Tai Chi

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What are you looking to know?

Just a bit of overview. There are many styles of Tai Chi or Taiji, and many bad teachers, and a handfull of good ones.

To answer the question, you have to start with what are you looking for?

Martial prowess? Tai Chi is an excellent combat art, if you learn from someone who can and will teach it. It is Chinese Kung Fu. It includes the full range of strikes, kicks, chin na (joint locks, throws, etc.)

Relaxation? You will probably be taught some basic chi kung (qigong) warm ups that will help you to relax. Improve balance, cooridnation, focus, etc, practice over time will do that. IF you practice and work at it, it can really become moving meditation. But you have to practice in the correct way. It is easy not to, it takes a lot of work, and correct work, not just doing the form, but doing it in a particular way.

It will probably not help with cardio fitness

If you have a specific question, I will be happy to answer to the best of my ability.

 

Just a little something I wrote on structure:

Physical structure

Feet: the 9 points of the feet should be evenly weighted. Heel, outside edge, little ball, big ball and the 5 toes.
Lower leg: as vertical as possible, the weighted knee should not extend beyond the toes, when you go lower in your stance, sit into it, like sitting in a chair, do not bend the knees beyond the toes. Caveat, this is in relation to the direction of the force being generated, most of the time, that is straight up, as we are standing, but it is possible that it could be in some other direction.
Knees: The knees are the most fragile part of the structure, and second only to the back in terms of injury. The knees only bend one way, any attempt to bend them in the wrong direction will eventually or immediately cause injury. Do not do this, it is bad. Correct form, the femur should point towards the second toe, play with this un-weighted to find out how your knee moves, then only move it this way. Beware of twisting and torquing your knees!!!! Also, try to understand the knee is a weight transferring joint, not a weight bearing joint.
Hips: the kua (Basically the hip joint, but there are other connotations to the word) must be open (relaxed, free across the whole range of motion) and integrated with the rest of the structure. This is accomplished by sitting. No chair in this sitting, sitting in horse (or wuji in Tai Chi) You can never sit in wuji too much . I low horse has its advantages, and is a great exercise as well. Find a good teacher to teach you this. This is something that can be learned in a seminar and taken home, especially if you have a friend with a good eye who can tell you where you are messing it up (rolfers are great for this, healers in general)
Back: Elongated and straight. Allow the kua to sink (bend the knees a little, keep the hips relaxed and open), visualize a crane attached to your head and pulling it up towards the sky (Gently!!!!) or pretend it is filled with helium and floating straight upwards, elongate the spine (no force), creating separation between the vertebrae. Is your head on straight?? 
Shoulders: spread and relaxed and sunk

For Wuji:
On the vertical, the ears should be in line with the shoulders, the shoulders with the hips, the hips with the ankles


The body builders can probably weigh in with some better desciptions than this, the form is the same, but what we do when we get there is different

 

Find a Eastern practitioner who knows how to teach Western people.

I used to train at US Wushu Academy with former members of the Beijing martial arts team and the people who grew up with Jet Li. OK, enough name dropping but it is a REAL school kind of like what you see in the movies.

AMAZING physical and mental results. You will be pretty surprised at how toned and strong you will become by performing the movements correctly.

So in summary. Research the right place.

 

How is wushu like tai chi?

 

It depends on what they mean by Wushu and Tai Chi

Wushu is a generic term for Chinese Martial Arts. It would be synonymous with what westerners think of as Kung Fu, which actually means something different and is kind of a made up term anyway. Tai Chi is an art that is part of Wushu.

Wushu is also a term used for a particular art. The routines in this art, including the Tai Chi routines, are drawn from many different traditional arts, and are formalized and regulated by the Chinese government, I believe under the Chinese Physical Culture Association. It is great exercise, promotes fitness, flexibility, coordination, etc and is very beautiful to watch.

I prefer the traditional (not saying the traditional is better, just different and it is a personal preference)

 

They teach Tai Chi there as well. Yang Style (what you're used to seeing) and Chen (lots of clapping and stomping)