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Creating Bridges: Spirituality & Philosophy: |
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T'ai Chi: The Miracle Exercise |
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by Bill Douglas |
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". . . T'ai Chi is the perfect exercise."
--Time Magazine, August 2002
"T'ai Chi is taking America by storm."
-- ABC News.com
Ancient Chinese mind/body fitness exercises, known as T'ai Chi and Qigong (pronounced chi kung), are going mainstream, and researchers are so astounded with the unexpected benefits they find, they are coming to be known as virtual "miracle exercises." Recent medical research shows how they may actually slow aspects of the aging process, reduce and even eliminate chronic pain, reduce anxiety, depression, and overall mood disturbance, boost the immune system, improve sleep, lower high blood pressure, and stimulate creative thought.
The gentle nature of these exercises has left researchers astounded when they found that as gentle as they are, they actually burn significant calories, stimulate muscle toning and bone maintenance, and provide an effective cardiovascular workout. Athletes have found them to be powerful performance enhancers as well, and one book explained how Qigong may be at the heart of Tiger Wood's development of what is almost a superhuman golf swing. Some athletes credit this to the powerful balance and coordination improvement moving Qigong forms like T'ai Chi provide. Which was proven in an Emory University study where T'ai Chi practitioners were found to improve balance TWICE as effectively as those using other balance conditioning therapies.
On slowing the aging process, new research at Baylor University School of medicine and elsewhere revealed that Qigong (pronounced chi kung), actually slows aspects of the aging process in a measurable way. Cells taken from Qigong practitioners lived several times longer than those from average people when observed outside the body. Also T'ai Chi can slow the deterioration of respiratory decline, increase levels of DHEA the growth hormone, and increase SOD production, the enzyme that protects the body from the ravages of free radicals.
On cardiovascular benefits, T'ai Chi, though it is perhaps the lowest impact exercise which doesn't even require breaking a sweat in many cases, amazed researchers who discovered it provides roughly the same cardiovascular benefit of moderate impact aerobics. Yet, it may do much more than that.
By reducing depression and anxiety, T'ai Chi practice helps people find a sense of control in their harried lives. The world is changing so rapidly that most of us feel a sense of being tens steps behind in a world beyond our control. By using T'ai Chi and discovering that we can have a powerful influence on our physical health and sense of mental well being, we create a cyclilic process that continually provides us with a greater and greater sense of well being. However, beyond just improving the way we feel inside, T'ai Chi provides us with a model for adapting to the stressful changes of our world in a more healthful and positive way, to be more effective in the way we interact with the world.
75% of illness today is rooted in stress, or rather unmanaged stress. For, the stress of change can be a healthful catalyst for growth when managed effectively. However, our Western culture has not provided us with very effective tools to do that. Yes, normal exercises like jogging and aerobics can help, but their stress management qualities are dwarfed by the profound stress cleansing effects that T'ai Chi and Qigong offer. T'ai Chi, which is an outgrowth of Qigong, has evolved over 7 centuries of research in China, and Qigong itself is the product of 2,000 years of research, so they have a deep science behind them which focuses on stress dynamics. Stress for the most part is the result of clinging to perceptions/behaviors that are no longer effective while being pounded by the endless rushing waves of change trying to wash us to a more appropriate future. T'ai Chi and Qigong are a mind/body system for teaching us how to "unlock our grip" on the past, so that we can flow more easily into the challenges and vast possibilities of the future.
By practicing T'ai Chi's relaxed motions regularly we teach the mind and body how to "release their grip on life" melting tensions from the tissue of the body as the heart and circulatory system relax open to greater function, and the increased microcirculation feeds organs, including the brain, and nerves the needed oxygen and nutrients more effectively while deeply cleansing the toxins and lactic acids from the deep skeletal muscles, acids which produce anxiety in us when they are allowed to build up through the normal stresses of the day.
So, the physical and emotional benefits, although profound and powerful, are only the tip of the iceberg of what T'ai Chi offers. Our performance potential may be radically expanded as this repeated pattern of physical, emotional, and mental "letting go" that T'ai Chi's gentle movement promotes, provides a microcosmic model of our lives, whereby we learn to more and more easily let go of outmoded ways of experiencing and reacting to the world. In this way we do not hold onto old prejudices or perceptions that prevent us from evolving into behavior that deals with the "real" current world rather than the old world that was, yesterday, last year, or last decade. This enables T'ai Chi practitioners to be on the cutting edge of new technology, diet, etc. to maximize health, abundance, and also spiritual well being.
Religious prophets often emphasized the need to forgive and let go of the past. This is a moral issue that heals, but it is also very practical advice for anyone who wants to make the most out of their lives. Business people who do not use up precious time or energy holding grudges or bemoaning relationships or business plans that don't or didn't work, but rather allowing their energy to constantly prod and reach and expand to finding what DOES work, are obviously way ahead of the game.
T'ai Chi's motions when done in the right frame of mind bring the lofty ideals prophets have shared with us, down to the "real politic" of our physical being. The cells of the body begin to enjoy the feeling of constantly "letting go" of whatever we hold physically, mentally, or emotionally in the form of "tension." This promotes a sense of feeling comfortable diving into a constant state of newness. Often we feel fear from change and will unconsciously hold onto old ways of behaving or seeing the world simply because on some deep level we are all afraid to change. Why? Change is unknown. We know we can do what we do now, so any change is threatening simply because it is uncharted territory, even though the change may be better.
T'ai Chi teaches us to continually let go of the tension in the body to move effortlessly through movements that replicate 95% of the motions the body is capable of. This constant "letting go" is an act of "faith," or a knowing that everything is going to be okay even if we don't squeeze our cranial muscles trying to "keep track" of or "control" the worlds' rapid changes. The paradox of this is that we actually keep up much more easily and healthfully . . . when we don't strain to "keep control." New T'ai Chi students quickly learn that if they "breathe" and "relax" into the learning of new movements, the mind and body assimilate the memory of them much better than when they "tighten" and strain to hold onto the memory of them.
This is a model for our personal business and personal relationships, as well as our society and planet. For example, to let go of old energy policies that pollute, damage health, and require great expenditures to defend militarily, so that we can move toward cheap, renewable, non-polluting energy is not a pie in the sky vision, but a necessary part of human survival. The technology is there, we could shift to it very affordably, but we are held back simply because our consciousness holds on to old "familiar" ways of doing things."
T'ai Chi's practice can enable all of us to see vastly improved and hopeful possibilities for our own personal health, financial abundance, and for our world. T'ai Chi is a launching pad into limitlessness. There is actually bounty in the world, rather than scarcity. A few tiny adjustments in spending priorities could solve most of the world's problems in very painless and exciting ways. The world only needs for us to practice the art of effortless evolution . . . and this is one of the powerful "side-effects" T'ai Chi offers our over stressed world.
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Bill Douglas,
Tai Chi & Qigong Author |
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Bill Douglas is the author of the #1 most popular T'ai Chi book in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States.
He can be reached at smartaichi.com His work, called "visionary" by the world's top T'ai Chi experts, is entitled, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to T'ai Chi & Qigong."
Bill is also the presenter in Britain's #1 best selling T'ai Chi DVD, Anthology of T'ai Chi & Qigong: The Prescription for the Future, and author of the acclaimed inspiration book, The Amateur Parent - A Book on Life, Death, War & Peace, and Everything Else in the Universe. It is available at www.smartaichi.com, and at amazon.com.
Bill is also the Founder of World T'ai Chi & Qigong Day:
worldtaichiday.org
and World Healing Day:
worldhealingday.org
now celebrated annually in 80 countries and recognized by the United Nations World Health Organization for it's healing work.
He is a media source on a host of natural health, social, & environmental issues and has been interviewed and/or published by media worldwide, including The New York Times and The South China Morning Post.
smartaichi.com
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