Tai Chi is a short way of saying Tai Chi Ch'uan. It means supreme ultimate fist or supreme ultimate boxing. Tai Chi is a great health art, also a great martial art. The two can never be separated. You cannot separate the Yin from the Yang. If you try to do Tai Chi just as an exercise or health dance then you lose a great deal of the health benefits. Doing Tai Chi as self-defence only, you lose some of the self-defence benefits for not adding the healing parts of Tai Chi.