Passive Self-Defense : Continuous Motions Balance ‘Grace, Beauty and Power’ in Meditative Martial Art

When Jennifer Booth moved to Orange County in 1975, there were few local opportunities to learn the Chinese martial art form of tai chi. She had spent five years studying the graceful moves--said to promote longevity and reduce stress--and wanted to continue.

Today, in part due to Booth’s efforts, the concentrated movements and discipline of tai chi have gained recognition and are taught throughout the county. When she arrived here from Escondido, there was only one local studio teaching tai chi and “most people didn’t know about it at all.”

Tai chi is still not as well known here as a self-defense method and is taught primarily as a meditative exercise. In that sense, Booth said, the closest thing to it is yoga, which derived from India as a spiritual practice. But besides the difference in original purpose, tai chi is also different from yoga in that all positions are continuous and done standing up, she said.

Her first year here, Booth met a physical education teacher at Orange Coast College and started a class. In 1976, she became a founding faculty member of Coastline Community College, where she teaches daytime and evening tai chi classes to students age 18 to 70.

Tai chi classes are also now taught in about 12 other locations, including other community colleges, martial arts studios and city recreation departments, she said.

Sitting in the Eight Immortals of the Tao restaurant in Huntington Beach, Booth, 44, said she first saw tai chi performed while a college student in Pennsylvania.

“It must have been my life’s purpose,” she said. “The moment I saw it, it was ‘this is something I have to learn.’ It was the combination of grace, beauty and power that I was seeking.”

Dating back more than 12 centuries, tai chi began as a Chinese martial art involving more than 100 continuous movements that would take years to learn. “The form speeded up has martial arts applications, but it is difficult to learn,” Booth said.

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Booth, who teaches a lesser-known style of tai chi called kuang ping yang, said the movements are the perfect exercise for those seeking relief from stress and illness.

And although her 64-movement form still takes two to three years to learn and requires daily practice, she said the half-hour of continuous slow movement will pay off with toned bodies, stronger backs and improved breathing circulation, mobility, flexibility and body alignment.

“It’s amazing how many people are cut off from their bodies,” Booth said. “Most are focused from the neck up--they breathe shallowly and don’t know how to move properly, relax or be coordinated.”

Other benefits purportedly include healthier internal organs such as kidneys, bladders and hearts. But the most immediately rewarding aspect, she said, is the overall sense of well-being that is more than that gleaned from other forms of exercise.

“Even simple walking will produce a good feeling, but tai chi also challenges the mind,” she said. “Walking doesn’t intrigue us enough. It doesn’t stimulate us the way the graceful, intricate and beautiful movements of tai chi do.”

In fact, Booth said, although the practice of tai chi is relaxing, it also energizes and creates a “purposeful energy.”

“People who take night classes tell me they can’t sleep,” she said. “So they stay up cleaning the house. If you want to get a lot done in a day, start it with tai chi, preferably before breakfast.”

Booth’s classes meet for two hours once a week, but students are told to practice for a half-hour each day, preferably outside in a natural setting. Booth has also made a video for students to use at home, is working on a book and hopes to find studio space to teach private classes.

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For the first half-hour of each class, Booth teaches a meditation technique that is designed to focus awareness and calm the mind. “I really teach unity of mind, body and spirit to bring your action into right relationship with others,” she said. “This is something you can do that gives you power, a sense of control in life. It creates a balance that is very important, because if you are overbalanced and too aggressive, that makes you vulnerable. It can be used against you.”

The idea, Booth said, is not to fight, but to learn to walk away. “The art of not fighting is even more difficult to learn than that of fighting,” she said. “You learn to defend yourself, but you hope you never need to use it. Fighting is a last resort.”

In fact, Booth said, the goal of tai chi is to transform aggression entirely.

“You have to learn to deal with the conflicts within, which if left unresolved tend to draw outer conflicts,” she said. “It’s not to counter the darkness in another person. It’s to counter the violence in ourselves.”