My social media accounts, and those of people I know, have recently seen an increase in AI-generated ads for tai chi. This is widespread enough that Yang’s Martial Arts Association recently published a blog post on the issue which you can read here. These ads come in a few forms. One pushes a 60 day weight loss program through tai chi; another pushes tai chi walking for weight loss. There are several problematic elements these ads share that I will address using my knowledge as an anti-diet, anti-fatphobic, taijiquan practitioner and digital communications professional with a Master’s in Theological Studies.
Quick Results: Buyer Beware
The first thing to note is that many of these ads are promising quick results. Anything promising so quick a process should raise some red flags and be approached with caution. In digital communications, this is especially true.
Empty Promises: Weight and Weight Loss
Weight is not a good measure of health. There are a whole host of sociopolitical and economic incentives to perpetuate the lie that it is. The truth, however, is that there are many factors that determine who weighs what and how changeable one’s weight is. Lifestyle, which includes the fitness regime one practices, is one of the least potent of these factors. Promising quick weight loss is unethical and even harmful; even if one were to lose weight in the short-term, multiple studies say that in 1-5 years nearly all people would regain the weight they lost if not more. So weight loss is not sustainable, and the reasons for pursuing weight loss should be examined carefully.
Suggested Resources:
Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating by Christy Harrison
The Wellness Trap: Break Free from Diet Culture, Disinformation, and Dubious Diagnoses and Find Your True Well-Being by Christy Harrison
Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia by Kate Manne
Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia by Sabrina Stringer
“You Just Need to Lose Weight”: And 19 Other Myths About Fat People by Aubrey Gordon
The Conspirituality of Tai Chi
One of my favourite podcasts has become the Conspirituality podcast by Julian Walker, Derek Beres, and Matthew Remski-they have also published a book of the same name. They came from the yoga world but I often find their coverage to overlap with my experience of taijiquan and qigong.
I think these ads fall into the general area of conspirituality. The ads rely on the ignorance of many as to what tai chi actually is and what it can do. Tai chi, as an internal martial art that includes a focus on qi cultivation, has often been mythologized so that there have been a plethora of fanciful claims such as “no-touch” knock-outs and miraculous healing. While practicing tai chi can indeed great health benefits to an individual this is not a modality where where double-blind, peer-reviewed and controlled standards are really possible limiting the ability to generalize such benefits to the wider population. And when one starts believing they can effect the health of others without touching them, the ability to verify it becomes impossible. Most high-level taijiquan practitioners in the main family styles ridicule the idea of a no-touch knockout. While taijiquan can lead to high-level fighting ability it does require physical contact to emit force, and the sensitivity that can appear prescient is really the result of many hours of dedicated training.
Claiming tai chi can lead to quick weight loss results capitalizes on the “magical abilities” often associated or claimed around practices where qi is involved in a significant way. To be clear: while practicing qi cultivation can be beneficial for health, promising any specific health outcome is impossible to predict and unethical.
Further, tai chi walking may sound impressive but it’s a deliberately vague term. There are a few things it could be: walking mindfully, practicing tai chi stepping methods, or turning a move from the routine into a walking drill through repetition-but the fact that the ads simply say “tai chi walking” without specifying further is a red flag for anyone with enough knowledge of taijiquan.
The weaponization of an overly magical conception of both qi and tai chi, and the ignorance as to what tai chi is and and can actually do, is also worrying to me from a theological perspective. Faith communities are often quite concerned with the embodied praxis of their members, whether they make that clear or not. Many Christian communities believe that a communion service where food and drink are shared is an important moment and there are rules and norms with varying degrees of restriction about what the food and drink can be, who can serve them, how they can be served, how they can be consumed, and when. Worship services have a similar range of rules and norms with some following a set liturgy that is predictable and consistent and some being totally improvisational; some worship services are quiet, orderly affairs; others are exuberant, boisterous, and creative. All of these ways of embodying faith and spirituality signify and demonstrate the values of a community. None of these elements are bad in and of themselves. The danger is that the ways a community embodies faith and spirituality include some bodies and exclude others; this becomes especially true if the ways a community embodies faith and spirituality are restrictive and heavily enforced. The best faith communities will allow a range of acceptable ways of being, and be intentional in how they structure their communities to facilitate a diverse range of bodies; the worst faith communities will harshly punish, exclude, and otherwise harm any bodies or ways of being they find unacceptable. These AI-ads draw on a martial art that is also culturally significant and a spiritual practice for many to perpetuate a message that only lean bodies are acceptable or desirable. This is unethical. The reality of many taijiquan styles and communities is that taijiquan can be adapted to fit the needs of diverse bodies, and the practice of taijiquan can be low-cost and accessible to many when compared with similar practices (i.e. yoga, karate, etc.)
Suggested Resources:
Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became A Public Health Threat by Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, and Julian Walker.
Conclusion
I will always advocate for practicing taijiquan if one is interested. It has been an immensely beneficial practice in my own life for over 21 years and I have seen it change the lives of many others in positive ways over that time. That said, it is not a quick or miraculous fix. It involves devoted, consistent practice over a long period of time to see the most effective change. If you want to move your body, the practice can be modified by knowledgeable instructor to meet the needs of most bodies; if you want to gain actual martial skill you will have to put in a lot more work, but it’s an art that relies on principles and skills so as a martial art it can help the slower and weaker opponent overcome the faster and stronger one. There are many reasons to practice taijiquan: more health and well-being, martial capabilities, confidence, self-esteem, physical literacy (and skills like coordination and proprioception), even spiritual development-but mere aesthetic changes, which is all that weight loss can reliably be said to accomplish, are not one of them.
If you do want to try some authentic tai chi, feel free to visit Hogg’s Chen Tai Chi Praxeum where all my tai chi resources and services are hosted or check out my primary instructor’s website, East Mountain Internal Arts
The Dreamers' Corner 