My Next Step in Personal Evolution

Steven Barnes
4 min readMar 2, 2022

This year, a major milestone, will be about seeking the connecting tissue between yoga and tai chi. The largest observable issue is that many yoga poses are “closed chain” in terms that arms and legs are pushing against gravity, while Tai Chi is “open chain” in that the arms are not engaged in the same way (push hands doesn’t do the same thing. If you have as much arm stress as you have with, say, Downward Dog, you’re doing it wrong.)

Now, anything I do or say here is not based on tradition. I don’t know anyone I can evaluate who has blended the two. I’m trusting that…

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Steven Barnes

Steven Barnes is a NY Times bestselling author, ecstatic husband and father, and holder of black belts in three martial arts. www.lifewritingpodcast.com.