Lessons from the Mountains: Why Movement Heals More Than Medicine

For thousands of years, people have searched for secret cures, the perfect combination of herbs, tonics, or rituals to bring strength and longevity. In ancient China, monks were often seen as the living embodiment of health and spiritual power. People admired the elixirs and herbal medicines they gathered in the mountains, assuming their vitality came from those rare roots and plants.

But I have often wondered if it was something simpler.
Maybe their health came not only from the herbs they consumed, but from the act of searching for them; climbing steep paths, crossing rivers, breathing mountain air, and moving through nature every day. The herbs may have healed, but it was the movement that truly made them strong.

Herbs are not bad, far from it. Nature’s medicine has real value and wisdom. But no herb, no supplement, no tonic can compare to the power of consistent movement. Exercise changes the entire body from the inside out: your lungs, heart, muscles, brain, mood, and even your immune system.

The Foundations of Health (Excluding Nutrition)

For me, true wellness comes from three interconnected elements:

1. Cardio – Expanding your VO₂ max, or your body’s ability to perform intense activity using oxygen efficiently. This builds endurance and resilience.

2. Strength – Weight training or body resistance work to keep bones dense, joints supported, and muscles active.

3. Mind Body Connection – The quiet, restorative side of practice, smoothing neural pathways, regulating tension, and allowing your body to recover.

Tai Chi fits beautifully into that third element. But I think many practitioners miss the full picture. In the past, daily life was cardio and strength work, people farmed, hunted, hauled, and walked everywhere. “Exercise” was not something they scheduled; it was how they survived.

My Own Practice

That is why I combine everything:

• Tai Chi for balance, focus, and internal strength

• Hiking in high elevations to challenge my lungs and heart

• Weightlifting to maintain structure and power

• Weapons training to refine coordination, precision, and the understanding of force

After decades of practice, I no longer need hour-long Tai Chi sessions every day. Instead, I integrate movement throughout life, flowing between stillness and exertion, effort and rest.

You can see my approach on my YouTube channel, where I practice in all kinds of weather and terrain:
Mountain Goat Tai Chi

Living close to high elevation gives me the perfect environment to test and strengthen my VO₂ max naturally. The mountains themselves have become my training ground, and I am convinced that movement, more than anything else, is the most powerful medicine we have.

The History of Tai Chi and Health-Part III: Tai Chi’s Use for Health Promotion

When Mao Zedong took power of China in 1949, he outlawed all traditional practices, including TCM, Tai Chi, and Qigong, and viewed them as superstitious (Chen, 2004). However, during health reforms Mao and his advisors began to see Traditional Chinese Medicine, including Tai Chi and Qigong, as an opportunity to aid in primary healthcare (Xu, 2010). Mao saw individual physical fitness as a sign of a strong nation. Qigong and Tai Chi fit into his vision of active masses, and his efforts in primary care inspired much of the Alma Ata conference in 1978 (Janes, 1999; Xu, 2010). Because Mao was a modernist who believed in science, a tremendous research effort began to explore Tai Chi and Qigong. Thus, Tai Chi and Qigong had to prove not to be merely a mystical superstition through using tools of scientific observation, which at that time were mainly large case studies (Kaptchuk, 2000; Xu, 2010).

Today in North America, Tai Chi has a variable and intense research history. It has been used and studied as an intervention on AIDS patients, haemophiliacs and just about every type of disease imaginable. One search on Google Scholar using the search term “Tai Chi” yielded 24,700 hits, and a search of the Cochrane Library website brought up reviews on Tai Chi and hypertension, headaches, depression, rheumatoid arthritis, fall reduction, and dementia.

One of the first influential studies on Tai Chi in the US was in 1996, when a team of researchers received funding from the National Institutes of Health to study Tai Chi and fall reduction (Wolf et al., 1996). There have been many studies replicating its efficacy in fall reduction, and it is included in many recommended guidelines for that purpose, including those issued by the Canadian Society of Exercise Physiology (CSEP, 2008), the US Department of Health and Human Services (US DHHS, 2008) and the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA, 1999).

Not many studies have been conducted on exploring its potential use in primary prevention, meaning preventing disease before people get a disease. I think this lack of research has to do with many preconceived notions people have linking Tai Chi with elderly people or because it is slow. Also, there is some controversy in exercise science fields as to how much of a role VO2max plays in prevention of cardiovascular disease. Recently, there has been some research that suggests musculo-skeletal strength plays a larger role than previously thought. If that is the case Tai Chi can maybe a good exercise for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease.

Next The History of Tai Chi and Health-Part IV: Tai Chi and Chronic Disease