The 5,000-year-old practice of T'ai Chi may seem a bit strange — especially to pace-based populations — because you don't have to go harder, faster, or higher to reap fitness and health benefits. T'ai Chi's basic motto is most familiar Western forms of exercise. (In China and other parts of Asia, T'ai Chi is mainstream, whereas fitness walking or jogging has been considered unusual, even odd, until recently.)

The T'ai Chi motto is the following: Go slow. Go slower. Go as slowly as you can. You may think that you are going as slowly as you can, but you aren't, so try to go slower. T'ai Chi is the complete opposite of hamsters-on-a-wheel step aerobics, hiking up a hill as fast as possible, or going as quickly as you can on the treadmill to burn more calories.