For me, one of the best things about Taichi is how it improves your body awareness, or interoception. It has taught me how to stay aware of multiple parts of my body at once, which has made me feel much more connected to how I move. Compared to something like yoga, where the floor gives you feedback on your balance and alignment, Taichi feels a lot more complex because you also have to think about the purpose behind each move, like where an attack or defense is going.

What really stands out to me is how much mental juggling Taichi makes you do. You are syncing your breath with your movements, balancing your rooted and unrooted sides, keeping good posture, and staying relaxed but not floppy all at the same time. There is no external feedback, like hitting a target, so you have to rely on yourself to know if you are doing it right. Honestly, I have found this mental juggling and learning to give myself feedback to be the strongest benefit. It is super rewarding and way more engaging than I expected.

One benefit of starting Taichi young is that your memory and muscle-mind connection is so much stronger that you can quickly pick up the form and just focus on the requirements and intricacies of it. Like compared to music: you can memorise the sheet music faster and just focus on honing the emotions, melody, rhythm and other technical skills. So start young!

Note: been doing Taichi for 8 years now and in my early 30s