Very few practioners of Tai Chi Chuan even know they exist. I talked to one "expert" who has some kind of "belt" in tai chi chuan and he had no idea what i was even talking about. I have never heard of belts or slashes being awarded in Tai Chi.

I always thought the final exam was doing the exersizes blindfolded and ending up in the exact spot where you started at... This is doing the dance twice ...yin/yang... First you mark your spot where you are starting and blindfold yourself. Then you start on your right when you fininish doing 108 forms than you repeat the forms staring on your left now..Now when you finish you should be at the same spot where you started.

In ancient times you can die from two ways disease or by attack. The external exersize strength the internal organs and provide a defense against attack. The yin, or internal exersizes, are the real exersizes that do the healing and revitalizing of the internal organs. Also the internal exerzise are stationary and do not flow into another exerzize as in the external exersizes.

Tai chi chuan is about attaining immortality. By either the internal or the external elixir of life. There are many chinese fables about their Taioist immortalis. Many chinese have reversed the aging process, their hair regains their orginal color, wrinkles disappear, etc.. but few have attained immortailty.

Incidentally, Clairol the shampoo company, has foud that hair color is controled by 3 different hair color cells and your hair turns grey cause these cells go dormant. Clairol is working on a chemical you can take to turn the cells back on.

A good book to read on qi gong is "Mastering of Miracles by Hong Liu, Warner Books, 1997

Complete System of Self healing.. Internal exersizes, by Dr. Stephen Crane, Tao Publisihing, 1968