How T'ai Chi is Healthy (3) Lifting

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T'ai Chi practice looks deceptively soft and easy, gentle and light, and well it should appear so to a casual observer.  But in reality it is heavy and rooted, that is, keeping the body weight underside.  So moving the arms and legs, for example, requires some lifting, in ways similar to lifting weights in the gym.  More specifically, it's not an exercise where we put on medium to heavy weights on the barbell or machine and where therefore we can only do, say, 8 - 10 repetitions.  Rather, it's an exercise where we work with light weights, which we lift via very slow movements and we perform for several  repetitions.