Tai Chi For Golf

I recently started taking classes in Tai Chi at my fitness club. I have long been curious about the practice, and when I saw that the class fit into my schedule, I jumped in.

Tai Chi is a Chinese martial art that is best known for its relatively slow movements. You will see large groups of people practicing together in parks and studios. It is often touted for its health benefits, especially for seniors seeking low stress training. As such, it seems to have evolved away from a focus on combat. My instructor mentions the “martial” part of the art only by way of explaining the origins of particular movements.

At this point, I’ve taken three one-hour classes in a fifteen week session and I am quite enjoying it. To my surprise, I almost immediately found that Tai Chi has applications for golf. The movements — such as I have learned thus far — are all about balance, weight shifts, rotation, flow, posture, breathing and awareness.

I naturally then went to the interwebs to see if there was some information on using Tai Chi for golf. I found an interesting YouTube video that illustrates some of ways Tai Chi can benefit a golfer.

In the video, Jake Mace shows how mastery of four basic Tai Chi actions — ward, roll back, press and push — can help improve your golf game. I have not yet gotten to the ward action in my class, but press and push were among the first moves I learned.

I am looking forward to more Tai Chi classes and seeing if the art can help my golf game this season.