Cultural Disparity between tai chi and western sports
As a traditional sport, Tai Chi Chuan was the same al Western sports, targeting upon oneself and achieving his own goals by building up the body, which is a general character of human beings. But a wide gap exists between the two different practices, because both of them are the products of their own traditions. Cultural conflicts make Tai Chi Chuan a hot potato for foreigners. Toget the obstacle out of the way, we must aim at a thorough understanding of the different cultural backgrounds where they evolved and grew.
Tai Chi Chuan debutted during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It emphasizes a combination of yin and yang , and inner activities and outer actions, which clearly projects the spirit of traditional Chinese culture—“Human is part of nature.” The outlook of the practice is not supposed to be extroverted, but to be introverted. A conscious or unconscious pursuit of the cinsummation is where Tai Chi Chuan sets its ultimate target, which goes along quite another track from any Western sport items.
The mainstream of Western sports originated from the Olympic Games in ancient Greece. From their form of movements to the rules and ways of the competition, Western sports were all born out of the athletics of ancient Olympics. Even in some sport items that emerged after the Industrial Revolution , the thinking still represents the features of the Western culture. Take basketball and boxing for example, These tow sports items lay stress on the iseas of offence and self-show, and pay great attention to the systemization of skills, which is a clear reflection of the traditional Western thinking of “concreteness”, “opposition” and “reasoning”. Due to the cultural disparity and different thinking models, difficulties occur in blending Tai Chi Chuan—something typically Chinese—with Western sports.
