Once a sickly child who later turned to martial arts to keep himself in condition, Hsiung Wei went on to develop "taiji-daoyin," a special form of exercise in which the essentials of taijiquan (Tai Chi) are combined with Daoist principles of diaphragm-breathing, and which is now being taught to dancers as the "Chinese-style dance workout."

With exponents ranging from business figures to professional dancers and primary school children, and a taiji-daoyin association established in Taipei this March, the discipline is beginning to attract wider interest in the city. What is the key to this mysterious form of exercise, and how is it learned?

Hsiung Wei, the creator of a unique form of taijiquan-related exercise called taiji-daoyin, is leading a class of dance students at the Arts Institute through their paces. First he gradually raises his arms, then slowly lets them drop, lowering himself into a squat, rising back up to a half-squat, then down again and up again, meanwhile pivoting on his ankles and turning at the waist and spine, curving his body forward as he moves, repeating this pattern over and over. In spite of their workout experience, the students seem worn out after two hours of class.

In contrast, 71-year-old Hsiung, in his tee-shirt and kung fu slacks, looks relaxed and content, like a man who's just enjoyed a fine meal.

Acquainted with death

The taiji-daoyin class is a brand new venture for the National Institute of the Arts (NIA), whose dance department is in its first year. The instructor, Hsiung Wei, who has no professional training in dance and has never studied dance theory, relies instead on personal experience for the demonstrations and explanations that he gives the students.

Hsiung says that as a child he was often sick, and was bedridden for a year and a half after contracting typhoid at the age of 13. Later when he was in the army, poor diet and lack of sleep made him so sick that his urine turned to blood. He ended up living a precarious existence in Taiwan, in a state of constant anxiety, and was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. The tumor was removed by surgery, but doctors were ready to give up on him when he failed to regain consciousness after the operation. Miraculously, however, Hsiung recovered the next day.

"I learned about death before dying," comments Hsiung. To keep the specter of recurrent illness at bay these last 40 years, he has trained hard at taijiquan. It was only once he began to feel that he had really learned something that he branched into dance instruction.

As we reach the end of the 20th century there is worldwide trend in the arts towards more "national," homegrown modes of expression, and Taiwan is plainly no exception. Cheng Shu-chi, professor in dance at the NIA and an experienced dancer in her own right, says that the Institute's dance department hopes to bring more elements of Chinese movement into its classes, rather than relying exclusively on Western technique. This is where Hsiung, as the creator of taiji-daoyin, comes in.

One important factor in the launch of Hsiung's class was a show staged last year by the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre called "Moon Water," featuring styles of movement drawn from taijiquan. As Cheng puts it, the dancers were particularly well "centered," in terms of physical control and balance. The National Kuo-kuang Academy of Arts, National Taiwan College of Arts and the NIA subsequently incorporated Hsiung's taiji-daoyin into their dance curricula.

In taijiquan, much is made of the need to remain loose, soft, supple and still, and key elements in training include keeping the head erect, the shoulders loose, elbows down, wrists supple, hips loose and feet firmly planted on the ground. For dancers trained from an early age in the Western discipline, with its frequent calls for physical exertion and gravity-defying leaps, this is a total departure. In the view of Lin Hwai-min, taijiquan's basic methods provide a good physical vocabulary for dance, a vocabulary which Cloud Gate has been able to draw on for previous productions including "Adagietto" and "Nirvana." In "Moon Water," Cloud Gate went a step further and incorporated elements of taiji-daoyin into the dance.

Cultivating the moral spirit

What then is taiji-daoyin, and how does it differ from traditional taijiquan? Apart from helping to inspire modern dancers, what are its functions and what skills does it involve?

Hsiung Wei explains that taiji-daoyin is a form of physical training for the cultivation of qi ("ch'i"), or vital energy, developed from the essentials of the Yang, Chen and Hao schools of taijiquan, along with Daoist methods of diaphragm-breathing.

Hsiung's development of taiji-daoyin began while he was teaching taijiquan at National Chengchi University's Daoist Studies group.

"Back then I was asked by Professor Li Feng-mao, instructor with the Daoist Studies group, to teach the students taijiquan, drawing on different traditions within the art to produce a simplified form for beginners," says Hsiung. The students' response was surprisingly positive, and in 1991 taiji-daoyin was incorporated into the health-and-fitness course at Society University.

Chang Liang-wei, apprentice to Hsiung Wei and chairman of the Taiji-daoyin Study Association, explains that taiji-daoyin comprises 12 separate exercises, divided into six dao qi (channeling energy) and six yin ti ("drawing out" the body) exercises. In the case of the latter, "drawing out" means coaxing the purely physical element from taijiquan. Hsiung's six yin ti forms are: rotating the wrist and arm (from square-on, and oblique positions), rotating the waist and spine, rotating both arms, rotating the ankle and hips, and "three-in-one" rotation.

As Chang demonstrates, joint rotation is one of the key elements of taiji-daoyin. The turning motion starts at the ankles and spreads up to the knees, hips, waist, spine and neck. At maximum rotation, pressing lightly on the flesh draws a distinct sound from the joint.

In traditional taijiquan, some turning is involved in every move, but in taiji-daoyin the rotating actions have been separated out to form new exercises, which Chang describes as taking "the strength of wound silk" from the Chen school of taijiquan, and "the strength of drawn silk" from the Yang school. This emphasis on rotations is designed to help loosen up the whole body.

Health and suppleness through rotation

Hsiung Wei developed his ideas about rotation from personal experience. He says that when he was training in taijiquan, he often heard the instructor exhort pupils with key expressions such as "open mind and upward power," "chest in and back straight," "shoulders dropped and elbows down," and "apply your intention not your strength," the purpose being to encourage the trainees to be physically loose and natural. Yet Hsiung wondered: does simply dropping the shoulders and lowering the elbows, without any additional movement, make your body relaxed? And if not, then what does?

He found his answer in a profound principle passed down from ancient times: "Without rotation the heavens would collapse, without rotation the earth would fall into ruin, without rotation man would wither." In Hsiung's words: "Through rotation the whole body loosens up, and does not stagnate. Through rotation, the body can learn to move as freely as water." As Chang Liang-wei elaborates: "This 'motion' is not something on the surface of the body, at skin level, so much as a deep movement that penetrates to the energy channels, nervous system, and inner organs."

Individuals can sense this for themselves through the appropriate exercises. Hsiung points out that in taijiquan the arms and legs do not move in a rigid or linear manner. Instead, every motion must pass along energy channels in the body, welling up from the soles of the feet, through the ankles, around the calves, the knees and the thighs, encircling the hips, up the spine and out to the shoulders, elbows and wrists, spiraling from joint to joint in this fashion before the body relaxes.

To achieve "deep motion" of this kind also requires qi. Or in other words, it involves an exchange of energy with the universe.

Inner cleansing

Taijiquan emphasizes qi training, but most people don't know where to find qi or how to cultivate it, and the very concept is still considered somewhat esoteric. Hsiung says that when a German journalist once asked him how to account for qi as a physical phenomenon, he used an analogy with the love between a man and a woman: "Although love is hard to express, that doesn't mean it can't be expressed. When you have a sweetheart, the words come well enough." The point is that the qi in Chinese martial arts training "can't be expressed" unless it is physically experienced day after day.

"This qi is something we talk of in Chinese culture," notes Hsiung, citing idioms such as: "An auspicious 'atmosphere' [qi] comes from the East," "Finished off in one 'breath' [qi]," and "The mighty moral 'spirit' [qi]." He explains that the human body starts out with the capacity to keep itself clean and healthy, but gets contaminated by poor diet and lifestyle, along with environmental factors, and hence the symptoms of ill-health. In its initial stage, taiji-daoyin is about expelling pollutants and enabling the body to function normally. "In modern terms," says Hsiung, "we could call it inner cleansing of the body."

In Chang Liang-wei's own experience, qi is what is meant in section five of the Daoist classic Dao De Jing (The Way and its Virtue), in the passage: "The space between heaven and earth is like a gigantic pair of bellows: hollow, but nothing is lacking; moving, but only to bring more forth," and is also alluded to under the second hexagram of the Yi Jing (The Book of Changes), the commentary for which explains: "The noble man with virtue at his center has mastered life's principles, is correctly positioned, and has full possession of himself. That which is within him, which permeates his body and influences all his affairs, is the very peak of refinement." In taiji-daoyin, physical exercise is merely a means of accessing this thing called qi.

Slow breathing

In taijiquan, physical strength and inner qi are built up hand in hand. Hsiung Wei's method, however, is for beginners to work on the rotation-based yin ti exercises, performing repeated stretches, contractions and rotations until they develop the necessary inner flexibility and pliancy, before moving onto the dao qi exercises, by which qi can be guided into and around the body.

For each of the six dao qi exercises, Hsiung summarizes the key point for pupils. Of the first exercise, for example, he says: "The breathing should be extended for as long as possible-inhaling like a bird taking to the air, exhaling like a goose descending from the sky." Of the second exercise: "Keep both arms outstretched, don't let them drop or tense up, hold them level and let the qi fill the space between the armpits," and of the third: "With arms raised high, stretch your body into a fork-like posture until you can feel it in your innards, then will the qi into the small of your back to massage your organs." In plain terms, the principle is to focus your mind and concentrate on breathing.

With its combined foundation in the philosophy of the ancients and the moves of taijiquan, along with its minimal space requirements, taiji-daoyin has rapidly become a part of in-house training programs at major corporations like Acer, Tatung, Mercuries Group and Evergreen. With prompting from Chang Liang-wei and other students of the discipline, taiji-daoyin has been offered as an extra-curricular activity at Tunhwa Primary School in Taipei since last November, and in March, the Taipei Taiji-daoyin Study Association was established.

As the old saying goes: "The master leads pupils through the entrance, but further cultivation is up to the pupils themselves." In other words, each taiji-daoyin learner experiences the training and accrues knowledge in their own individual way.

Chi Ching-tai, a pupil of Hsiung's for over 10 years, says that the "loose, supple" feeling aimed for in taiji-daoyin only came to him after many years of training. Learning how to "project external qi," and consciously "settle qi in one's lower abdomen"-so as to marshal one's strength and spread ease throughout mind and body-depends on how hard the pupil practices and how well they comprehend what happens. Chi describes the sensation in one of the exercises: "You feel a pulse of qi surging up from the soles of your feet, making your body feel lithe and weightless, but with your feet adhering to the ground as if by suction."

For anyone who hasn't undergone the training, descriptions like this sound completely abstruse. But as Hsiung Wei points out, "training in taijiquan means training the mind," and unless you start out with a "sincere attitude" and focus on healing the mind, it is well-nigh impossible to attain the level that is aspired to. "The goal of training is not to strike outwards but instead to strike inwards, to strike into the deepest recesses of the heart," says Hsiung.

Catching on

In contrast to pupils who have been training with Hsiung Wei for a number of years, the dance department students, who have only been exposed to taiji-daoyin for around three months, are encountering what for them is a totally different physical culture. As Cheng Shu-chi points out, the students were worried at first about picking up injuries through the deep rotation technique, as "their previous training always stressed leaving the joints alone wherever possible."

Chen Hung-chiu, another former Cloud Gate dancer, says that the looseness called for in taiji-daoyin is very different from the energetic stretching in Western dance training, in which "it is easy to use strength but hard to be relaxed, and where stretches do not necessarily imply looseness." Chen says that studying taiji-daoyin has opened up many new possibilities for her body.

Hsiung Wei, regarded as founder of "the Chinese dance workout," says that while taiji-daoyin has only been taught at college level for less than three months, there is now a quietly growing momentum of interest in the discipline.

From the Taiji-daoyin Study Association in Taipei, to the Chinese Martial Arts Hall in downtown Chungho, and even the headquarters of the National Taichichuan Association, students of taijiquan are gradually learning the moves of taiji-daoyin, and the discipline has already been endorsed by the participation of prominent figures like former provincial government spokesman Chin Chin-sheng, and Bank of Overseas Chinese chairman Tai Li-ning. Says Wang Tien-yu, Taiwan president of the US-based Metropolitan Insurance and Annuity Company: "Taiji-daoyin is more than just exercise, it's a way of training the spirit." Unlike most sports, he adds, speed is not the point. You have to concentrate with your whole body, and it helps a lot in easing the tensions of modern life.

As we reach the end of the 1990s, it seems that everyone in Taiwan wants to know how to better manage the little universe of their own body, in pursuit of mental and physical composure. Could simple, easy-to-learn taiji-daoyin go beyond being a form of dance workout to become the next big nationwide style of exercise? For that, we shall have to wait and see.

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Every Friday, 71-year-old Hsiung Wei gives a class at the National Institute of the Arts. Taiji-daoyin positions like the one shown here are far from easy for the young dancers, even after years of dance training.

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As these young dancers discover through taiji-daoyin, relaxing the body is harder to learn than physical exertion.