Which is better, yoga or tai chi?

There is no absolute good or bad, it all depends on your own physical fitness, sports demands and adaptability to daily scenes. The one that can last for a long time without injury is the most suitable for you.

I met two completely opposite examples in the sports community in the past two years. One is a young girl who works in Internet operations. She stares at the computer for 12 hours a day. Her shoulders and neck are as stiff as rusty bearings. My mind was full of unfinished plans, so I went to the yoga studio downstairs to practice flow yoga. After one class, I stretched and twisted to the music. I broke out in a light sweat. Most of the tightness in my shoulders and neck disappeared immediately. I also said that every time I finished practicing, it felt like I had vented all the energy I had accumulated for the day. After persisting for less than half a year, the problem of round shoulders has improved a lot. The other is retired Aunt Zhang. She twisted her knee while dancing in the square. After hearing about yoga for health, she signed up for a class for the elderly. She almost injured her meniscus by doing leg-opening and hip-opening with the teacher. She was so scared that she never dared to go again. Later, she practiced with the Tai Chi team in the community. The teacher specially adjusted the height of the rack for her so that she didn’t have to squat too low. After half a year of practice, the soreness in her knees disappeared, and even her blood pressure, which had been high and low before, stabilized a lot.

Of course, the advantages and disadvantages of these two sports are very different in the eyes of different people. Many young people think that Tai Chi is a "senior sport". The pace is so slow that you can fall asleep and you have to find a reliable master. The threshold is much higher than that of yoga. Now you can find a yoga studio under an office building and take 45 minutes to practice a session during your lunch break. There are sweat-inducing flow yoga and Ashtanga, as well as slow-paced Yin yoga and restorative yoga. If you want to get in shape or relax, you can find the corresponding school, which is very convenient. However, many people who have practiced Tai Chi for many years complain that in order to cater to the public's needs for body shaping, many yoga studios now overly pursue the range of postures and often require students to do splits at the waist. Newbies with no basic knowledge are especially likely to injure their waists and knees if they practice blindly. Tai Chi, on the other hand, pays attention to step-by-step procedures. There is no need to compare the difficulty of movements with others. What is practiced is breathing and overall strength. Long-term practice regulates the body and mind from the inside out.

If we really want to say the core difference between the two, it is actually the difference in the logic of exerting force. Yoga puts more emphasis on the awareness and extension of individual parts. During practice, you can clearly feel the stretching or exertion of a certain muscle. Tai Chi pays more attention to "strength and integration". All movements are carried out by the waist and hips, and no one part is strained separately. Each has its own benefits. I am currently involved in both. When I am in a hurry during the week, I take 15 minutes at home to practice a few sets of yoga shoulder and hip opening movements to relieve the discomfort of sitting for a long time. When I have free time on weekends, I go to the park to practice Tai Chi for half an hour with a teacher I know well, calming down and regulating my breathing. Anyway, there is never a standard answer to exercise. As long as you practice to be comfortable and able to persist, it is better than anything else.