author: @sleepyfox
title: The Chi problem
date: 09-Oct-2025
Much has been said about the word sometimes written as 'Chi' in English (pronounced the same as in the English word 'cheese'), corresponding to the Chinese character 氣. This character, pronounced 'chi' in Chinese, 'ki' in Japanese, 'khi' in Vietnamese, 'gi' in the Philippines etc and corresponding closely with the Indian word 'prana' is variously translated as 'energy' in the sense of vital life-force, or 'élan vitale' from the French.
There are a couple of issues here where the art of Tai Chi is concerned:
The first issue is the name of the art: 'Tai Chi' as it is commonly known. Of course, this is a rendering of the original Chinese characters (太極拳) and pronunciation into something vaguely sensible to our western eyes and ears.
During Victorian times a system of rendering Chinese words into English, which is referred to as 'Romanisation' after the Roman alphabet, called 'Wade-Giles' was commonly used, named after its inventors Thomas Francis Wade and Herbert Giles.
Using the Wade-Giles method of Romanisation, 太極拳 becomes "T'ai Chi Ch'uan", which people tended to write as "Tai Chi Chuan", which later became shortened to just "Tai Chi".
The Chinese government eventually issued their own formal approved system of Romanisation, known as 'Hanyu pinyin' (literally 'Chinese language spelled sounds'), referred to generally as just 'Pinyin'. Using Pinyin 太極拳 is written in English as 'Taiji Quan'.
The eagle-eyed amongst readers will note that the middle character above in Taijiquan (極) is not the same as the character for 'Chi' at the top of the page (氣).
That is because the "Chi" in Tai Chi is actually "Ch'i", not "Chi" using the Wade-Giles Romanisation, something that is a lot more obvious in Pinyin where it is "Ji" instead of "Qi".
The long and the short of it is that the Chi that people think of, as in "Ch'i Kung" ('energy work') is not the same "Chi" as in "T'ai Chi Ch'uan" ('Yin-Yang boxing', or 'Taoist fist'). This is less obvious than in Pinyin, where it is 'Qi gong' vs. 'Taiji quan'. There's much more to be said about how Qi (or Ch'i) is both mistranslated and misunderstood, but I'll leave that for another time.
'Tai Chi Chuan', or more properly 'Taijiquan', has been translated as 'Supreme Ultimate fist'. Although this is perhaps literally correct, it is very misleading. As English speakers we read this as somewhat arrogant, as can Taiji really be both supreme, and ultimate? But in reality this isn't 'supreme' or 'ultimate' as adjectives, but rather the noun 'Supreme Ultimate', which refers to the Dao, the Way, the source and fundamental principle of Taoism. The 'Taiji' is the Yin-Yang symbol. More properly translated it becomes 'Taoist boxing', or 'Yin-Yang fist'.
In short, the name has nothing to do with "Ch'i" or "Qi".