What if the benefits of a Tai Chi class begin before we even enter the room?
In our Tai Chi Skill Building series, each week is designed as more than a lesson in learning the next movements of the Tai Chi form. Before we begin moving, students are invited to create the conditions for exploration: to slow down, notice, reflect, choose a goal or intention, and consider what they would like to discover through the lesson ahead.
Tai Chi: Movement That Supports the Whole Person
Tai Chi brings together gentle movement, attention, posture, coordination, and breathing. Research has associated regular Tai Chi practice with improvements in psychological well-being, including reductions in stress and anxiety, while systematic reviews have also reported improvements in subjective sleep quality. Research examining cognition suggests potential benefits for aspects of cognitive and executive function, particularly in older adults. Together, these findings help us understand why students may experience Tai Chi as much more than physical exercise.
Breathing is woven naturally into this experience. Rather than forcing the breath, we create space for posture, movement, and attention to work together so that breathing can become easier, fuller, and more comfortable. Research into Tai Chi in respiratory populations has also explored improvements in exercise capacity and some measures of pulmonary function. These studies do not mean that every person will experience the same outcome, but they add an important scientific perspective to the traditional experience of Tai Chi as an integrated mind-body practice.
Why We Begin With Nature
At the beginning of our weekly program, participants encounter photographs of nature accompanied by ideas to ponder. This is intentional. Before asking the body to learn something new, we first invite the person to arrive.
A systematic review by Jo, Song, and Miyazaki examined 37 studies investigating the physiological effects of viewing nature. Across studies using photographs, videos, virtual environments, plants, flowers, and other natural elements, the researchers found evidence that viewing nature can support physiological relaxation and stress recovery. Measures used across the studies included heart rate variability, blood pressure, heart rate, EEG, and measures of brain and autonomic nervous system activity.
That makes the opening photographs more than decoration. A quiet image of water, trees, sky, flowers, or landscape can become part of the transition from the activity of the day into a space of observation and possibility.
Read the systematic review: Physiological Benefits of Viewing Nature
Writing Toward the Future
Our journal prompts are also deliberately future-facing. We are not only asking, “What happened?” We are asking questions such as: What would I like to experience? What am I noticing that could open a new possibility? What might become available if I approach this movement, idea, or week differently?
There is a growing research base around positive future-oriented writing. Studies of the “Best Possible Self” approach, in which people write about a positive future they envision for themselves, have found benefits for well-being, optimism, and positive affect. A 2019 meta-analysis included 29 studies with 2,909 participants, while a 2025 systematic review of positive expressive writing found the most consistent benefits for well-being and positive affect, with future-oriented Best Possible Self exercises among the approaches showing the most consistent benefits.
Our Tai Chi Skill Building journals are not the same intervention, and we are not claiming that these studies directly test our program. What they do provide is a fascinating scientific context for why intentionally imagining, describing, and exploring a desired future can be a meaningful part of preparing for learning.
Preparing Before the Lesson Begins
Notice how much has already happened before we learn the next Tai Chi movement. We have viewed nature. We have shifted our attention. We have considered a goal. We have written toward possibility. We have become curious about what we might notice. Then we enter the class and begin exploring movement, music, breath, structure, space, and the internal experience of the Tai Chi form.
This is one of the ideas at the heart of BioEnergetic Wellness: learning can begin by preparing the conditions for observation rather than rushing immediately toward an outcome. The student remains at the centre of the exploration, discovering what changes, what becomes easier, what feels different, and what new possibilities emerge.
And Students Are Already Feeling the Difference
One participant shared after our third class:
“The power of this work has provided me with a new framework for presenting yoga; it has changed my life.”
That reflection beautifully captures why this series is about skill building rather than simply memorizing a sequence. The Tai Chi movements give us a structure, but the explorations around them invite students to consider how movement, awareness, intention, creativity, and observation can influence everyday living and the future they are creating.
You Can Still Join Us
If this way of exploring Tai Chi speaks to you, you are welcome to join the Tai Chi Skill Building series. The first four lessons have been recorded and are ready for viewing, together with the class assets and supplemental materials, so you can begin from the start and move through the explorations at your own pace while joining us for the lessons still ahead.
Registration is available here on the Greenwell Center website. Come curious. Bring your journal. Allow the photographs, questions, music, movement, and Tai Chi form to open a conversation with what may be possible next.
Research Mentioned in This Article
Jo H, Song C, Miyazaki Y. Physiological Benefits of Viewing Nature: A Systematic Review of Indoor Experiments. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2019;16(23):4739.
Si Y, Wang C, Yin H, et al. Tai Chi Chuan for Subjective Sleep Quality: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. 2020.
Wang C, Bannuru R, Ramel J, Kupelnick B, Scott T, Schmid CH. Tai Chi on Psychological Well-Being: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. 2010.
Wayne PM, Walsh JN, Taylor-Piliae RE, et al. Effect of Tai Chi on Cognitive Performance in Older Adults: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. 2014.
Carrillo A, Rubio-Aparicio M, Molinari G, et al. Effects of the Best Possible Self Intervention: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. PLOS ONE. 2019;14(9):e0222386.
Hoult LM, Wetherell MA, Edginton T, Smith MA. Positive Expressive Writing Interventions, Subjective Health and Wellbeing in Non-Clinical Populations: A Systematic Review. PLOS ONE. 2025;20(5):e0308928.