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The Yoga and Tai Chi connection

October 27, 2013 by Dave Friskney Leave a Comment

The two major health giving disciplines from the East that have been fully embraced by the west in modern times are Tai Chi and Yoga.
What do these on the surface very different forms of exercise share in common and how are they different? Which one would be best suited for you, I hope this article allows you to make an informed choice?

Western type exercise, Yoga and Tai Chi, the difference.

The recent rise in sports centres and health clubs in the west could be said to spring from the increased Leisure time that we all now enjoy thanks to the machines. With the car at the door you no longer have to walk far, central heating means we no longer collect and chop wood and fruit and vegetables, well why grow them in the first place when you don’t have to pick it you can click it and it’s delivered to your door step? We Westerners used to get all the exercise that we could take just by performing the common chore and the daily task, now we must go to expensive health clubs to sweat and feel the pain or risk becoming fat and lazy.
Both Tai Chi and Yoga are designed to bring about a unity between the mind and the body.Hath a yoga was originally practiced as preparation for seated meditation, it changes the mind and can even cure depression. The slowed down movements of the Tai Chi form can slow down the over active mind by bring us more fully into the here and now and away from the mental chatter. Both of these Eastern imports work on the mind body and spirit, unlike western exercise with its countless repetitions monotonously putting the body alone through its paces, in a machine like way.

On your feet or on the deck and how much space have you got?

For some people the fact that Tai Chi is done standing up and that they don’t have to get down on the floor is a big advantage, with certain health issues just getting down and up from the ground can be off putting or impossible. Because Tai Chi can be performed on an uneven or not fully dry surface means that it is more suited to being done in the great outdoors, a more natural and healthy environment for any exercise.
Yoga does not require the same amount of room that is needed for doing the Tai Chi forms, if there is enough room for your mat you can get on with it. Although short and more compact Tai Chi forms have been designed in recent times for Westerners if you are being taught an older long form you will need a fair amount of space.

Seasoned Veterans with a lot of experiance.

When I first went to a Yoga class thirty years ago, there were even then teachers with twenty years practice under their belt. Iyengar Yoga in particular seemed to be blessed with many veteran teachers who had been quietly getting on with it for a long time and really knew their onions. Although until relevantly recently Hong Kong was a British colony with a significant part of the population practicing Tai Chi in full public view every morning, Britain, until recent times perhaps, did not generally have the same wealth of highly experienced Tai Chi teachers that Yoga has enjoyed for many years. Unlike other martial arts Tai Chi has no belt system, the, I trained in China, qualification should be questioned, was it a two week holiday? I once had two weeks in Majorca but did not master Spanish, learning things properly takes time as we all know.

Celebrity endorsements

Although Yoga classes tend to still be filled in the main with women it’s not as if men have not got a role model to encourage them into giving Yoga a try. Sting, the good for his age famous pop star makes no secret of his regular practice of Yoga and he looks in good shape for his effort to. He also makes no secret, to the point of bragging, of how Tantric Yoga has greatly improved his sex life, you would think that would make any bloke curious!
If Yoga needed to be Spiced up any further than this we have now had Geri Yoga, maybe after a certain age you need more than Girl Power!
Tai Chi has not been blessed at this time, or for the purists cursed, with celebrity endorsement. Which famous face will bring Tai Chi more fully into the public glare, many wait with baited breath? Apart from Patrick Swayze, seen doing the Yang form in the film Road House, the big names in the Tai Chi scene are unknown to the public. It does not help possibly that the big names in Tai Chi sometimes begin with an X and I can’t pronounce them myself!

Religion and an art hijacked by the New Age movement.

Yoga can stand tall and proud in its own right, it’s health benefits, both mental and physical, are proven, but still it is not always free of cultural and religious packaging. I know of one person who traveled to France from England to do an intensive Yoga residential course that carried with it a hefty financial investment. Imagine his discomfort, to put it mildly at being expected to bow on his knees and place flowers, to a picture of a smiling Guru that he did not know. The course also involved a lot of chanting and readings from the Sutras, delivered by less than adept public speakers, my friend left the course early deeply disillusioned.
Tai Chi was for a long time hijacked by the New Age movement. Demonstrations of Tai Chi were given at Natural living festivals by teachers with questionable skill who often looked like John Lennon. Somehow these New Age Tai Chi teachers were seen as more spiritual than say a kick boxing instructor, maybe because they didn’t have to get in a ring and prove themselves? There between the stand selling crystals and the booth for aura reading they transcended the earthly plane. With regular bi annual visits from Chinese Tai Chi masters this situation is changing although the language barrier can still get in the way, a far greater understanding of Tai Chi exists today than was the case some years ago.

Tai Chi is not a soft option

It could be Aerobics Pilates or Yoga, women undertaking these activities are prepared to suffer in order to look good. In fact, like dieting the pain is part of the entertainment and a regular point of discussion with friends. Just as riders recount their most dramatic falls from a horse so too are the most sadistic extreme exercise classes discussed, giving at least as much again in pleasure as they gave in pure pain. Some older people are not immune to this law of Yin and Yang that if you take something to the extreme it becomes it’s opposite, extreme pain becomes pleasure. Have you ever heard what the ramblers say, it’s not worth getting your boots dirty if you do not do at least eleven miles!!! I must be missing something here because I’ve had pleasant even memorable walks of far less than that but, the real bliss apparently starts after eleven miles!
Many people see Tai Chi as a soft option and at first that seems to be the case but not if you want to get good at it. A posture like the crow in yoga promises pain as soon as you look at it, a sort of legs off the ground press up held at the most painful bit, I must admit I always really liked the crow! Well I just have to say in all honesty once the honeymoon period is over, Tai Chi is not a soft option.

How far do you want to go?

Both the physical side of Yoga and of Tai Chi are only the outer shell of philosophy’s that are very profound. Tai Chi from China is the product of a civilisation that goes back continually since the time of ancient Egypt. Yoga is an expression of the Vedic tradition which is extremely rich in wisdom. Just as exercise systems both Yoga and Tai Chi will with regular practice give you a more pliant and relaxed body which will really improve your health. The greatest form of relaxation however comes through a deep mental understanding of ourselves and the world. Behind the physical side of both these arts are great oceans of wisdom, how far do you want to go?

Filed Under: Tai Chi, Yoga

Improved posture with Tai Chi Plus.

October 24, 2013 by Dave Friskney Leave a Comment

Why bother to improve your posture?

Improving your posture is highly advantageous for many reasons and the benefits are long term, they are for the rest of your life!
With improved posture you will breath more efficiently and have better concentration. Digestion is also helped by having good correct natural posture. We read far more than we realise about people by there body language, how you carry yourself says a lot about you to the rest of the world. The more comfortable that we are with ourselves then the more comfortable others are being around us. A big part of being comfortable with yourself on a physical level is having a natural relaxed and therefore comfortable posture.

So what are the causes of poor posture?

The obvious culprits of poor posture are the endless hours that many people spend slumped in front of a screen or griping the wheel of the car fighting through the rush hour. Periods of sitting should be balanced by regular stretching, how many of us do this? Although standing for long periods can be better for you than sitting down this is only true if you are standing correctly as many a shop worker knows! If you are well above average height when you are talking to most people you will be looking downwards which can cause another set of problems.
The not so obvious culprits of poor posture are the cultural images that we emulated when we were young. At an impressionable age we mimic our heroes, often unaware that we are doing so, we even adopt their style of walking and standing along with their way of dressing. In our man made artificial world we have moved along way from what is natural and this is reflected in artificial and unnatural ways of holding ourselves. An extreme example of this are high heel shoes, when they are in fashion women will risk deformities in their feet to project a taller and more curvy shape! Once these artificial ways of, for instance standing, become ingrained in the muscle memory they feel natural and when people are shown a more natural way of standing it feels uncomfortable and artificial, at least at first.

Better concentration.

By improving your posture you will automatically improve your breathing and your concentration. By habitually adopting a more natural position you will be giving your lungs the room to work to their full capacity. By increasing the oxygen that is entering the body and reaching your brain you will improve your concentration as well as your all round health.

Less tired and more relaxed

When our posture is poor we have to use muscles that we should not be using to compensate for poor body alignment, this causes fatigue. The more that our body structure is balanced and self supporting the less effort it takes physically to say, stand in a queue at the airport for twenty minutes or more! When you see this in terms of many many years, in fact the rest of your life, good posture is a good investment and a big energy saver!

Less wear and tear on the joints

It’s not just fuel for your car that’s gone up in price recently, have you noticed the increase in the cost of tires? We drivers know that by keeping balanced tires at the right air pressure both the fuel and the tires last longer.In a similar way to car tyres if through good body alignment our weight bearing joints have the weight load that they take evenly and correctly distributed they too will last for longer.

Old age and posture.

Our posture does not get worse when we get old, it’s just that as we no longer have the muscular strength to compensate for any faults in our body alignment, the bad habits of a lifetime start to show more. In China were millions of people practice exercises that are good for their posture daily a person that you assume to be not old can be walking in front of you but if they turn around you can see that they are actually very old, their posture can be like that of someone many decades younger.

What your posture is saying to others

I remember knowing some body builders that worked as bouncers. These lads looked really strong and they were actually even stronger than they looked, it was nothing to them to sling a trouble maker out of the club as if they were a rag doll. For all the muscular strength that these bouncers had during all the long hours that they were payed to stand at the door they couldn’t keep still for more than two minutes, hand on the wall then back on the wall turn to shoulder on the wall, it was uncomfortable just to watch!
There is just that something about someone who carries them self well is ant there? It goes beyond the outer trappings of clothes or even age and is hard to describe but you know it when you see it. Good posture equals physical balance and a relaxed but poised manner, beauty and physical strength are fleeting but your never too old to be elegant and graceful. Along with good manners and having tact good posture costs nothing and is worth so much.

With Tai Chi Plus you will be working on improving your posture right from day one. The best way to improve your posture is by what is called in tai chi, stance testing. This involves the instructor showing you where your posture is weak in any move, correcting it and then showing you how much more stable your structure is when in the correct position. The tai chi form is excellent for improving your posture and the stretching exercises unlock the tension that you are holding making it easier to get good body alignment. It’s good to make long term investments and the best investments are in yourself. Having good posture is at the core of good health and vitality, it is a discipline worth having.

Filed Under: Tai Chi

Tai Chi Plus for neck pain

October 19, 2013 by Dave Friskney 2 Comments

As a long term sufferer of neck pain I know that these Tai Chi type exercises can really help.

When life has become a real pain in the neck or you have simply slept the wrong way there is something that you can do before you reach for the pain killers or even afterwards before they have worked. This method is free natural and should go at least part way to relieving your plight.

An indirect approach.

When you can hardly move your neck due to pain and stiffness the last thing that you want to do is exercises that directly work on the neck, which is a delicate area to exercise at the best of times. However gentle slow exercises that work on the neck indirectly can give some relief and often in just a few minutes. Keep any of these exercises slow smooth and gentle, all of the exercises should be done as small circles.

Rolling the hips.

Rolling the hips is an indirect way to get some movement going in your body when it is locked up due to neck pain. The hips are a large strong part of the body unlike your small delicate and at that moment painful neck. The hips are a relatively long way from the neck so even with only a little practice but a lot of care you should be able to slowly rotate them without having to move the neck or hardly at all.
For this exercise cast your mind back to the school playground and the girls spinning hoola hoops on there hips, now divide the speed and size of their movement by ten!
As your hips are at one end of the spine and your neck is the other slow controlled circles with the hips can help to gently start to free up the neck. Try no more than five rotations and then rotate the other way, feel how you are doing before deciding to do more.

Shaking the hands.

Again because the hands are along way from the neck you can get away with moving them and not jarring the neck. What we want to do is create gentle rhythmic movements that cause a sensation in the neck that feels like a gentle vibration. Hold your hands in front of you or at your sides and imagine that you have wet hands and no towel and shake your hands trying not to move the rest of your body.
Do this gently so that if your hands really were wet it would not get them dry! Do this for no more than thirty seconds, you should be able to feel if it is starting to help.

Rolling the shoulders.

This exercise is best done after the first two as the shoulders are in close proximity to the neck, only do this one if the first two have to some extent given you some extra movement back to your neck. Very slowly rotate the shoulders one at a time, place the opposite hand near the shoulder to help control the movement and help to isolate the rolling shoulder from the neck. Try no more than three rotations on each side to start with and see how you get on.

Breath deeply and calmly from your lower tummy.

When we are in pain we often tense up without even noticing. Tension in the body especially a sort of holding or locking up of the part that hurts only makes things worse. In the medical profession they call this habit of the body to tense an area in pain guarding. By breathing deeply calmly and in a relaxed manner we can start to disparate some of the tension held in the body. Focus your mind as much as you can just on following the breathing as you breath in and out. When distracting thoughts come along just bring your attention back to following your breath in and out. This breathing exercise can help with many things so it’s a good one to know. Like everything you will only get the hang of it with some regular practice but once you have got the hang of it this breathing exercise is a great tool.
I would recommend doing this breathing exercise in between each of the other exercises even if only for half a minute. By repeating the breathing exercise briefly in between the others you will be relaxing and slowing down the pace that you are going at, remember that you can go too fast but never too slowly with these in fact the slower the better.

It’s your body

If you suffer from neck pain from time to time you may find yourself doing these exercises quite often. These exercises are some good basics there are others which could well be worth doing as extras. It’s easy to depend completely on pills but it feels good to be able to help yourself, it’s your body and it’s up to you how you look after it. I have found these exercises to be helpful on many occasions and they can work for you to.

Prevention is better than cure.

Most of us in this modern world watch a screen for too many hours a week and sit driving for many hours as well. These exercises can be done daily as part of a general exercise program which could well reduce the occurrences of a stiff neck. Like anything what you choose to put in will govern what you will get out of these exercises, I hope that you give them a go because they do work.

Filed Under: Tai Chi

Tai Chi Plus and staying in your circle.

October 19, 2013 by Dave Friskney Leave a Comment

A major principle of Tai Chi is to stay in your circle both mentally and physicaly. This allows a centered ness and balance to be maintained in both combat and daily life. As soon as you are drawn out of your circle in tai chi pushing hands you are already loosing balance and can easily be toppled, as soon as you take on too much or spend too much in everyday life then you are already skating on thin ice!

How big is the circle?

The size of your physical circle in tai chi pushing hands will vary with each individual. Your circle is defined by how far you can reach to and still not easily be pulled off balance. Learning not to reach outside your circle is a big part of tai chi pushing hands as is also learning how to entice your opponent out of their circle where they are easy prey.
In life our circle is defined by our mental physical and financial strength. Life experience teaches us not to over do it and to know when to quite while we are ahead, trying to keep up with the jones is pointless and exhausting. Tai Chi calls this moderation and balance staying in your circle or you could say knowing yourself.

The expanding and contracting circle

When we are very young part of the job of our parents is to define our circle for us. Those well defined limits, don’t play further than the end of the road and be back by six where frustrating but also reassuring at the same time, they defined the world that was safe. As we grew and first walked to school all on our own the circle was expanding, do you remember the first time after passing your test driving the car on your own? The new car driver is thrilled at having the freedom that driving gives, their circle has just expanded enormously.
Feeling old is with us for more than half our lives as it is simply the natural contraction of the ffffffhhcircle. We were probably in our twenties when we first did not really feel like going to that night club after the pub, we just did not have energy to waste anymore, yet six months before going to the night club was so important! The expansion and contraction of the circle is as natural as breathing in and out and mentally resisting the ebb and flow of the circle is futile. However within this unavoidable circle of life we can on a personal level expand our horizons and grow as people.

Extending our circle

In pushing hands we can increase our range of movement and still be balanced and comfortable by practicing Tai Chi. Stretching and learning to sink opening the hips and other joints, all this extends our circle physically. if you were to push hands with someone who had a much greater range of movement than you, a larger circle, they would feel solid and bendy at the same time. Even if this person was shorter than you their reach will probably seem greater and rather than you overextending them you would find that it is you who is overextended.
It could be loosing a lot of weight or getting more sleep, anything that increases our vitality will increase our circle regarding our energy.The opposite is also true and anything or anyone who depletes our vitality will also shrink our circle.
When we are learning something new at any age we rightly sense that in some way we are growing, our circle expands. Knowledge and experience breed confidence and this is an expansion of our circle.


How brightly do you shine?

If you imagine that you were a lamp how big a circle of light would you throw out into the dark? The circle that each one of us could light up would be different for everyone, inside our circle things would seem real but outside our circle they would seem abstract or unreal.
To someone having trouble walking even with a walking stick someone talking about hiking twenty miles would seem to be a ridiculous waste of energy. However if the person using a walking stick regained full health and was capable of walking long distances they may well see a twenty mile hike in a different, or brighter light!

Reacting at the right time

In a self defence scenario, say a person running towards you and yelling, a good martial artist will only react as the attacker enters their
circle, that is when the aggressor can no longer change their attack. This skill, to react at the right time takes a cold calmness loads of training and more cold calmness! We have all heard people saying don’t show your hand too soon but the impulse to come out with a reaction prematurely is just so strong.
In life it takes lots of practice and awareness not to over react to things, maybe on the newes, that are outside of our control and save our energy for smaller things closer to home that we can influence.

When the dog has you over and the salesman sees you coming.

What dog owner has not experienced the dropped ball near your feet but, you reflect afterwards, not that near. Those brown eyes look at you so pleadingly, there may even be a slight slow wag of the tail as further encouragement if only you would bend down pick it up and chuck it! Sometimes you may reach for that ball not even fully aware that you are doing it and just before you touch it suddenly it’s not there, snatched gone, the trap is sprung! For a game that you had little or no interest in is ant it amazing how annoying it can be?Keep your saliva covered man key ball you scowl at the laughing eyes, you have just been had! You have allowed yourself to overreach and be drawn out of your circle, it is not the first time even is it and you know annoyingly not the last? To your dog ball games, if they are his thing, are as important as football to a professional football player and they both master their art. With the same intensity the top salesman will draw you into an expensive purchase, such as a time share apartment and a day before you did not even know that you needed it or had even heard of such a thing.

The importance of routine

The jobs and things that we need to get done regularly are easier to accomplish if we are in a routine. It’s often only when a constructive routine breaks down that we realise that things had been going along quite smoothly. Even our bodies like routine, it’s not the regular but the unexpected demand that puts our back out. If we get into doing some Tai Chi daily it can be a big plus, but it’s probably only when we have slipped out of the habit of doing it that we realise just how much that we were getting from doing it. Being in a good routine gives us a balance and centered ness, you could see the routine as a circle.

The Tai Chi circle in a nut shell.

If we could not worry about the things that are outside our control or even react to them at all and be aware certainly of possible trouble in the distance but not disturbed by it, we would have little stress. Keep to a well balanced routine and when we let it slip do not beat ourselves up but just get back into it. All of this is easy to say of course and hard to do but with practice it can become as natural as any habit and staying in your circle is a habit worth having.

Filed Under: Tai Chi

What Does Tai Chi Mean? Yin And Yang Explained

October 11, 2013 by Dave Friskney Leave a Comment

What Does Tai Chi Mean? Yin And Yang Explained
Tai Chi means yin and yang or yin yang and has a far broader meaning than a sequence of martial arts movements preformed in slow motion. Tai Chi, yin yang is at the heart of Chinese culture, everything from Chinese medicine to principles of warfare are based on the philosophy of Tai Chi.

Yin Yang fist.

The full name of the slow motion martial exercise that millions of people practice for health is Tai Chi Ch’uan, which means “yin yang fist”. It is also known as “supreme ultimate fist”, “boundless fist”, “supreme ultimate boxing” or “great extremes boxing”. Yin yang fist is an expression of Tai Chi philosophy applied to martial arts, Tai Chi philosophy is also applied to Chinese cooking and many other aspects of life!

The Tai Chi SymbolYin Yang philosophy.
Yin yang is seeing and explaining the visible world as consisting of opposite but supporting forces that are constantly interchanging. If this dynamic balanced expressed in nature is reflected in our lives we are in harmony with the way however if we loose this natural balance we have lost our way.

As clear as night and day.
We can all see that everything has an opposite and without its compliment couldn’t be distinguished or even exist. We know hot because of cold and night because of day the list could go on and on. The interplay of these opposites gives rise to everything that makes up the visible world including ourselves and is called change, to understand how things change is called wisdom.

The only thing that does not change is that everything changes
~ Bruce Lee

What is yin?
Yin is the half of duality expressed as soft expanding black cold light empty and female. Nothing can ever exist and be completely yin or completely yang each contains some of the other. If something was for instance totally soft it would have no structure and if something kept expanding it would be spread so thin as not to exist.

What is yang?
Yang covers the expressions in the world of the masculine energy. Hardness contraction white hot heavy and full are all aspects of the masculine. Take the human body, it is the yang qualities of the white bones that give us a solid structure, without this structure we would be a pile of jelly on the floor! The other side of this is that we are made up of mainly fluids and without the more pliant tendons and soft tissue, the yin element,we could not move.

Dynamic balance.
It is human nature to reject one side of the coin and cling to the other, we tend to think in terms of cops and robbers, good guys and bad guys, rather than seeing ever fresh situations, which calls for giving up preconceived fixed ideas.

Nobody is as good or as bad as you think they are!
~ Old saying

One example of clinging to only one side of the coin is wishing for good health.
We can only have health because of sickness, often an illness is telling you to rest, it’s a warning that we have lost balance and need to slow down.

Never sick early death.
~ Chinese proverb

Life is this dynamic balance of shifting circumstances that we have to adapt to on a daily basis. Nothing stays the same and it is our ability to manage change, to go with the flow and make the best of it that gives us peace of mind.

Truths are universal
In our own folk wisdom little expressions such as “every cloud has a silver lining” are reminding us that there is always a bit of good in the bad, this is the same universal truth, nothing is ever totally yin or purely yang. The darkest hour is before the dawn is another way to remind someone that tough, or good times don’t last. The higher that you go, the harder that you fall is a well known truth in Western culture. Seeing the big picture and another point of view clearly, staying centred and moderate is the wise way.
Sometimes by stepping out of our own cultural background by studying something of another tradition we are able to see things in our own tradition more clearly and appreciate them even more than we did previously.

The full circle.

When we are very young we lack teeth and hair and are vulnerable. When we are very old we again lack teeth and if you are male you will probably have little or no hair left and once again we are weak and vulnerable. At both the opposite ends of life we have similar characteristics as we start and complete the circle of life. The very young and the very old are free of the rat race and worrying about the opposite sex, it can be a time of great learning and discovery.

Appropriate exercise.

When we are in our youth we have energy to burn off and waste, the exercise that we need is about eighty percent vigorous with far less of the slow gentle cool down stuff. As we get older the opposite is true, plenty of regular slow stretching and balance training. This way when we do occasionally burst into strenuous activity our well oiled and still as supple as we can keep it body can cope with the sudden extra demand. This change in how we exercise is a gradual one and only we feel the right balance but it will gradually be less of the explosive stuff.

Bend and be straight.

When walking the dogs today on the moor I noticed the first strong winds of autumn blowing the reeds over at an angle but with no damage done because of their yielding yin like suppleness. Strong winds cannot snap that which yields ready to spring up again when they pass. Illness and old age are best dealt with as the reeds cope with the wind, there is a lot in the yin yang symbol if you know what it is saying.

Filed Under: Tai Chi Tagged With: Tai Chi

Tai Chi as a moving meditation

October 9, 2013 by Dave Friskney Leave a Comment

Tai Chi has all the benefits associated with meditation but does not involve sitting on the floor with eyes closed and being still that some westerner’s find so alien. Standing up and going through the gentle exercises of Tai Chi as a moving meditation is more natural to many. Meditation is a great thing but as it is not part of Western culture and can seem so very different, some people just don’t take to it.The scientifically proven benefits to health and mental well being of meditation, along with better balance and posture can be gained through regular Tai Chi practice.

Don’t think, feel.
~ Bruce Lee

The Tai Chi form.

A large part of Tai Chi is the form, a sequence of movements which can take up to half an hour to perform, short versions of the Tai Chi form may take just a few minutes and can be more suitable for a busy life style. While doing the Tai Chi form your body and breathing slow right down, this induces the calm state of mind associated with meditation. Just to keep your balance and an even pace throughout the form calls for a heightened concentration and simple focus that is refreshing in itself. To be fully concentrating in the here and now requires us to let go of any thoughts to do with the past or future this causes a back down to earth relaxation.

You don’t have to sit still.

The hardest thing in seated meditation for beginners, us westerner’s especially, is to sit without fidgeting. In Tai Chi as a moving meditation this pressure is removed, the body does not get in the way of meditation as the meditation is on the body and how it moves through space. Rather than stiffening up sat in one position for a long time Tai Chi stretches the body in many different, you can feel your breathing automatically change as the body opens and loosens.

Mind and body together.

So much of ourselves can get caught up in thinking that we almost switch off from our body for periods of time. Tai chi puts our attention into feeling the body and how it moves, this creates a oneness, mind and body together.In the fast pace of modern life we can feel very scattered. You might be planning the day ahead mentally but emotionally be caught in an argument that you had an hour before and your body is somewhere else.

I’m at three with nature!
~ Woody Allan

Anyone watching a top gymnast preform cannot help but be spellbound. The mental and emotional focus needed is matched by the demands of physical strength and flexibility. Top level gymnasts have the ability to bring the mind and body together in a way that can be breath taking, but what about the rest of us?
Just by slowing any movement that we do down our mind is drawn more sharply into concentrating on it and by regularly practicing Tai Chi this concentration becomes a habit.
The centred focus that Tai Chi creates is a mind body unity that lingers after your Tai Chi session.

Mindfulness.

Western phycology has found that there are huge therapeutic benefits to the Eastern meditation practice of mindfulness. If patients suffering from stress anxiety or depression, can even briefly fully focus on the here and now, negative thoughts loose their overwhelming energy and life becomes more simple. Zen, a form of Buddhism, puts a great emphasis on being completely mindful of the action that you are performing right now. A lot of Japanese culture, from the tea ceremony to swordsmanship are all different ways to develop mindfulness. Therapists are finding that stripped of their religious or cultural wrappings meditation techniques such as mindfulness can have huge benefits.
The fact that when practicing Tai Chi you are becoming very aware of your posture breathing and balance means that you are practicing mindfulness.

Flow and the unstoppable mind.

To us westerners ‘unstoppable mind’ would probably conjure up an image of a runaway train thundering through all that stood before it. To the Japanese swordsman unstoppable mind meant a mind that never became frozen even for a brief second in a life threatening situation. A top swordsman would keep flowing through one attacker after another, never hesitating never distracted. We may never more than partly reach the focused flow of a top swordsman, or ever need to, but a bit of it would be good!

How do we move in the direction of unstoppable mind?

The first step towards developing this quality is to have a regular practice or training session were the body and therefore the mind is moving in a flowing way, both the silk reeling exercises and the tai chi form achieve this.
The second step would be to become aware of when we become mentally frozen in our daily lives even for a moment. The other side of this particular coin are the times when we over react to something too quickly. The word responsibility means our ability to respond to something, this means dealing with situations in life smoothly and appropriately. If living up to this unstoppable mind sounds like a tall order that’s because it is! We can all give it a go and try at least but remember not to beat yourself up by judging yourself. Just by observing how we can be taken aback by a sudden challenge is the first step in melting a habitual response of freezing up.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step ~ Chinese saying

Silk Reeling.

Silk reeling is a term that you may come across in Tai Chi, it is a concept that probably will need no further explanation if you are Chinese. Silk was once a luxury cloth who’s method of production, the silk worm, was a well kept Chinese secret. The method of extracting the silk from the silk worm, when it was done by hand before modern machinery , required a smooth continuous action that was a skill in itself. A similar smooth continuous movement is sought in Tai Chi and the foundation training in Chen style Tai Chi is actually called silk reeling.

The three great advantages of the silk reeling exercises are the following:

  1. They are very easy to learn compared with a Tai Chi form.
  2. They don’t require much room as they can be done on the spot.
  3. A beginner can immediately experience the feeling of the Tai Chi form without having to learn more than one move.

Hard and soft mind.

Hard and soft mind is a useful concept to describe the mental state that we want when doing Tai Chi. Hard mind is the feeling we have as we battle through the rush hour or worse, cant find the car keys in the first place! Hard mind has a heavy and intense feel, while soft mind has a light relaxed and playful quality about it. An example of soft mind might be sitting on a River bank on a hot day in summer with your feet in the water, eyes closed and just feeling the sensation of the current pulling your feet. You could say that hard mind is always trying to get somewhere else and soft mind is just exploring where it is.

Silk reeling induces soft mind and for this the slower that it is done the better.

When things are young they are soft and pliant, however with age they become hard and unbending. To slow down this hardening effect we would do well to practice silk reeling and soft mind. Even finding just a few minutes each day can make a difference over a period of time. We can all get caught up in a busy fast pace life style to the point that we forget, apart from maybe on a holiday, that there is another mental state other than hard mind. With regular practice silk reeling can make it more easy to switch into the soft mind way of being.

Agile into old age.

The effortless silent glide of your modern car can have a mood enhancing effect compared to driving an old banger. The more agile smooth and effortless that we can be in our movements and posture the more our mind can flow free. In our image obsessed culture people worry unduly about how young they look but is ant it better if you look your age but can move like someone ten years younger or more? As with many things it all starts in the mind, a calm relaxed mind. By practicing Tai Chi as a moving meditation, you will be improving yourself both mentally and physically at the same time.

It is often older people in the west that like to do a crossword puzzle every day and it becomes as much a part of their routine as having breakfast.

In the East many people when they retire have more time to practice Tai Chi, maybe we have something to learn from each other?

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Filed Under: Tai Chi Tagged With: Meditation, Tai Chi

Better balance with Tai Chi Plus +

September 11, 2013 by Dave Friskney Leave a Comment

When walking the dog becomes a step in the dark, we need better balance.

In a phone conversation with my sister tonight it came to light that when she has been walking her dog Willow on uneven ground, she has more than once lost her balance. It seems that her ankle just suddenly gives way, this has resulted in more than one fall, the ankle is painful for weeks afterwards.

What did the doctor say?

The doctor suggested an ankle support, okay in trousers maybe but not in a dress, she hasn’t bothered with it. My sister had researched exercises on the Internet that might help but had not actually practiced any of them.

A friend that she walks with who is a nurse noticed that her sense of balance is not what it could be. We can all learn something useful from the Chinese who in there culture consider it normal to go out early every morning and practice exercises that involve balance and stretching. Us westerners will think it a fine idea to do the cross word to keep the memory working but don’t on mass fill the parks at the break of dawn to keep our bodies working.

The dog walker’s best friend

As any dog walker will happily tell you mans best friend is better than any exercise machine going. Rain or shine dogs have to be and take delight in being walked. Those big brown pleading eyes get you out of your comfort zone and into the great outdoors,fresh air and exercise are always worth the effort. The twice daily ritual, if your busy can seem a chore but it does you a power of good and you will miss it when it is no longer required. Unfortunately it’s normally only when we stop performing a habit that is healthy that we realise how much good that it was doing us, at the time we are too aware of the effort that it takes and not so much maybe the benefits that we are getting from the activities. However for all the general health gains of regular walking to regain a greater range of movement improve our posture and breathing and increase our sense of balance we need specific exercises.

Static and moving balance exercises

I explained to my sister about some of the better balance exercises that we do in Tai Chi Plus + and various exercises to regain suppleness in the feet and ankles. Movements from the tai chi form involve stepping in all directions slowly to improve your control and balance this sort of training can be life enhancing and it’s fun to. So static balance exercises to start,for instance standing on one leg, followed by slow motion stepping in several directions to keep balanced on the move.The next step for anyone who wants to give it a go is to get the judo mats out and to learn how to fall.

The fear of falling

The biggest cause of falling is the fear of falling, we all start to slip occasionally, maybe on a bit of ice but tensing up out of panic causes a top heaviness and a slip becomes a fall. As my sister said a fall now is one thing but in your seventies or older it could be very bad. By losing a lot of your fear of falling, by learning how to fall safely on a judo mat you can go with the sudden movement of a slip, stay relaxed and catch yourself before you go down.

One of the most disconcerting things about having a fall is often the suddenness of it. One minute your on your feet fine and dandy then whoosh your looking at the sky! By training in how to do a controlled fall and becoming aware of your balance and loosing your balance you won’t have that how did I get here feeling if you do fall you will be aware of what just happened and will probably be less damaged.

Rommany the pony that I ride on the New forest twice a week had me off three times in the first month of riding her. I had never fallen from the horses that I’d previously ridden, but Rommany a flighty spooky pony required a new level of riding, it was a steep learning curve. I am happy to say that the falls only average about once a year now,the last one involved her spinning around suddenly and thundering back down the ice covered hill at a full gallop that we had just climbed.The first fall from Rommany involved a cow caught in a fence, you never know what you will find in the forest! You play and sometimes you pay and boy it’s all the fun of the fair and any rider accepts that if you get on a horse you will sometimes fall off a horse, but learning how to break fall is of particular interest to horse riders.

At the more advanced levels of martial arts training I’ve had students who could break fall on concrete, bounce up ready to fight. One student who got her black belt in Japan told me that the test required break falling down the temple steps! Jockeys the warriors of the racing world, who fall on average every thirteen races, once they hit the ground, then have to contend with the galloping thoroughbreds behind them.

Putting balance exercises into your everyday routine

If its possible to train for and survive the more extreme falls, the risk of injury from every day falls can be diminished with some training. This training along with regular practice of the better balance exercises taught in Tai Chi Plus + can greatly reduce your risk of injury even with two excited dogs towing you over rough ground. A key thing with any skill is practice and fitting that practice into your existing routine I suggested to my sister that once I had shown her these exercises and helped her to get the technique reasonably right she should try and do them every time she was boiling the kettle for a cup of tea. A full kettle gives more time to practice and a cup of tea is a reward that you have then earned for another better balance practice session. If we are to make doing stretching breathing and balancing exercises part of our daily habits, little and often is best and why not link them to an existing habit such as having a cup of tea?

Better balance with Tai Chi

Many of the breathing and balancing exercises taught in Tai Chi Plus+ are so subtle that people in a public place would not even know that you were practicing them. Why not combine exercising the dog in the park with doing exercises for yourself? Instead of standing there like a lemon while the dog enjoys all those scents and runs around exercising why not lift a leg off the ground and breath deep!

Filed Under: Tai Chi Tagged With: Balance, Tai Chi

Tai Chi Plus +

August 23, 2013 by Dave Friskney Leave a Comment

Tai chi is an art practiced by millions of people around the world as a form of gentle exercise to improve posture balance and body control.

Beginners classes in Tai Chi are now being held in Christchurch and Poole, Dorset.

Filed Under: Tai Chi Tagged With: Tai Chi

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  • Wado Ryu and Shotokan,so what’s the difference,by Poole Karate Club?
  • Poole Karate Club on self defence for children
  • Karate kata ……… Useful or useless, by Poole Karate Club?
  • Poole Karate club on kata for children.
  • Boxing, the best defence in a street fight?
  • What is Kung Fu?

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