Tai Chi and GO are two of my hobbies, and clearly there are some similarities and differences. Let’s get the most obvious out of the way— They are both wife-approved pastimes. When a hobby gets the stamp-of-approval from your significant other, you hold on tightly and never let go! A second similarity is that culturally they both come from east Asia. Weirdly, my first exposure to each were in no way a product of my love of Asian culture (which at a young age primarily consisted of watching Godzilla, Gamara, and Ultraman). As a young acting student in college, one of my acting teachers taught us Tai Chi as a basic movement exercise.
The first time I played Go was from a floppy disc I bought at Best Buy (two references that people under the age of 40 may need to google). I went into Best Buy to get some software to help me play bridge, actually, and found a package called 5 Classic Games. This soft included bridge, which I wanted to study, plus chess, checkers, and backgammon (all of which I already played), and of course GO. I vaguely knew of GO’s existence as a gamer kid, but had never played it. For context, I was in my young twenties at this time. To make a long story short, I wound up skipping the other 4 games because I got hypnotized by GO. So, that’s how THAT started.
Both Tai Chi and GO have, so to speak, a lot of moves and a complete beginner doesn’t even know what they’re looking at, really. And, to start either one, involves a lot of “copying” the moves that the more experienced players are doing – even if you don’t always understand them. A particular arm movement or step in Tai Chi has deeper meanings to both health and martial arts that will not be apparent without more study. This reminds me of studying joseki. You can’t just copy the moves in a joseki—through study and application, you must ideally come to understand them.
Tai Chi doesn’t have a rating system, like other marital arts or GO, but if I had to guesstimate my skill level I’d go with 10kyu. Not a complete beginner but still FAR from a Dan-level Tai Chi-er. At a recent Tai Chi class, one of the more experienced Tai Chi-ers (he IS Dan level!) said to me, that beginners shouldn’t worry about memorizing everything, he said, when doing a routine, just “stumble along til you get to parts you’re familiar with” and boy did a bell go “ding ding ding” when he said that!
Stumbling along until we get to the part we’re familiar with is exactly how I play GO. Definitely ALL kyu players do this, and even low Dans do as well (I admit this as a AGA 2 Dan myself). I think what happens, which is similar to Tai Chi, is that by the time you’re Dan level there is less “stumbling along” and more “familiar with” but the Principle-of-Stumbling still applies. I am the Tai Chi master of the stumble-suji (the tesuji I accidentally stumble in to).
One other difference I’ve noticed in the two is that we sit while we play GO but traditionally stand to do Tai Chi. This is why I can play GO every day but only do Tai Chi once or twice a week. I just can’t stand standing that much!! GO is definitely a more knee-friendly hobby! And, because of the standing and subsequent use of balance, one needs to be careful when you do Tai Chi because you can injure yourself. When I play GO, I don’t injure yourself, I injure my stones! Not only injure, but sometimes I kill them, too.