Title : Tai Chi for Health
link : Tai Chi for Health
Tai Chi for Health
Tai Chi health benefits are a bit of a mystery to most people in the Western world who have not been exposed to Tai Chi. Also,Tai Chi health benefits have been mysticised quite a bit as a result. Tai Chi health benefits include benefits to the mind, body and spirit.
Tai Chi health benefits for the mind are an easier concept for most people to grasp and are understood a little better in our culture due to our modern day emphasis on stress relief. As a result when most people think of Tai Chi health benefits they think of the stress relief as Tai Chi has been widely used in America as a stress reliever. All you have to do is watch the slow, smooth, calm and peaceful movements or sit in on a class and you begin to relax and forget your troubles.
A simple way to begin to understand Tai Chi health benefits is to think of the negative effects of stress and the positive benefits of relieving that stress. There are many studies available now that explain the negative physiological effects of stress in detail. In a nutshell they include but are not limited to a greater propensity to get sick and a shortened life span as well as a reduced quality of life. Also, stressed people generally tend to sleep less (upping the likelihood of getting sick due to a compromised immune system) and eat more.
So, Tai Chi benefits health quite directly by helping the individual to relax and unwind. This means that Tai Chi health benefits include better protection against getting sick, better sleep, a longer life and a better quality of life. On the surface this sounds like a bit of a stretch but the math is quite simple. One of the Tai Chi health benefits is lower blood pressure. I say this because I have had many older students come back from a regular Drs visit (annual check-up) and tell me that the Dr told them that their blood pressure had improved dramatically from prior visits. This in itself lowers the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Often people doing research on Tai Chi look for measurable data to find out the secret to Tai Chi health benefits and there is measurable data to be found. However, I think this Tai Chi health benefit is simple. Generally, higher stress means higher blood pressure and less stress means lower blood pressure. There can be other causes and factors to consider but stress is known as a high killer of people for a reason.
Some Tai Chi health benefits are a direct result / effect of improved skeletal alignment and posture. Back pain is one of the number one untreated and undiagnosed medical problems that most people suffer from. The back pain can be and sometimes is due to an injury but more often than not it is simply due to many years of bad or / and improper posture. In Tai Chi the back is aligned very straight and practice involves very correct posture from the beginning to the end of the set.
If you do not have very correct skeletal alignment you are not receiving much of the physical aspect of Tai Chi health benefits. Unfortunately, in recent years I have worked with many serious students of Tai Chi who come to me after hitting a dead-end in their current practice of the art and who are unable to attain the higher level skills of Tai Chi and are not receiving much of the better known Tai Chi health benefits. The first thing I usually find I have to teach them is correct structural and spinal alignment.
There are a number of reasons for this lack of Tai Chi health benefits and overall Tai Chi ability. One of them is that unfortunately many people will not diligently work their Tai Chi with an attention to proper alignment and often do not understand what they are trying to accomplish with proper alignment and body structure.
A basic example of this is the bone density that Tai Chi is known to develop that helps prevent falls in the elderly. The way to obtain this Tai Chi health benefit and part of the way that this actually occurs is that the practitioner must align their upper body weight over the legs and then relax the entire body so that the weight of the entire body presses down through the structure due to gravity. This alone will increase the thigh bone density and mass over time and increase the muscle mass and strength through the entire leg.
The problem is that most people do not like the muscle soreness and work that this requires one to go through so they do not get the Tai Chi health benefits because of it. This alignment does more that just increase the bone mass in the upper thigh and is important for other Tai Chi health benefits as well as being a component in the proper use of Tai Chi for self defense.
Another reason that a lot of people do not get the physical Tai Chi health benefits is that, all to often, highly qualified instructors are teaching large groups of people in order to make a living and they can not take the time with their students to make the smaller and more specific corrections required to help the students really obtain the Tai Chi health benefits. This is why all of my Tai Chi instruction is performed one on one or with very small groups with a lot of one on one attention.
Another reason that often students in the USA do not get the Tai Chi health benefits is that there is simply a lot of unqualified Tai Chi instructors in the USA today. This is mostly due to the amount of weekend certification workshops whereby someone with no real prior knowledge of Tai Chi can go to a weekend workshop and leave as a fully certified Tai Chi instructor. This person (often an occupational or physical therapist or nurse) then goes home and starts teaching Tai Chi classes using their Western medical credential to try to legitmize their Tai Chi.
This current state of affairs is very unfortunate and Tai Chi in America as a whole suffers as a result of this rip-off scam of Tai Chi by unqualified instructors where real Tai Chi and the Tai Chi health benefits can not be found. Who will want to do Tai Chi if the consensus is that it does not work? And, what other opinion will the public come to about Tai Chi if most of the Tai Chi that is available is incorrect or poorly taught and people are not getting any of the substantial Tai Chi health benefits? I and we as an organization are working very hard to try to prevent this from happening. Please see our article on what a legitmate Tai Chi instructor should know and do your diligence (by being an informed consumer) even when just looking for Tai Chi health benefits.
A basic example of this is the bone density that Tai Chi is known to develop that helps prevent falls in the elderly. The way to obtain this Tai Chi health benefit and part of the way that this actually occurs is that the practitioner must align their upper body weight over the legs and then relax the entire body so that the weight of the entire body presses down through the structure due to gravity. This alone will increase the thigh bone density and mass over time and increase the muscle mass and strength through the entire leg.
The problem is that most people do not like the muscle soreness and work that this requires one to go through so they do not get the Tai Chi health benefits because of it. This alignment does more that just increase the bone mass in the upper thigh and is important for other Tai Chi health benefits as well as being a component in the proper use of Tai Chi for self defense.
Another reason that a lot of people do not get the physical Tai Chi health benefits is that, all to often, highly qualified instructors are teaching large groups of people in order to make a living and they can not take the time with their students to make the smaller and more specific corrections required to help the students really obtain the Tai Chi health benefits. This is why all of my Tai Chi instruction is performed one on one or with very small groups with a lot of one on one attention.
Another reason that often students in the USA do not get the Tai Chi health benefits is that there is simply a lot of unqualified Tai Chi instructors in the USA today. This is mostly due to the amount of weekend certification workshops whereby someone with no real prior knowledge of Tai Chi can go to a weekend workshop and leave as a fully certified Tai Chi instructor. This person (often an occupational or physical therapist or nurse) then goes home and starts teaching Tai Chi classes using their Western medical credential to try to legitmize their Tai Chi.
This current state of affairs is very unfortunate and Tai Chi in America as a whole suffers as a result of this rip-off scam of Tai Chi by unqualified instructors where real Tai Chi and the Tai Chi health benefits can not be found. Who will want to do Tai Chi if the consensus is that it does not work? And, what other opinion will the public come to about Tai Chi if most of the Tai Chi that is available is incorrect or poorly taught and people are not getting any of the substantial Tai Chi health benefits? I and we as an organization are working very hard to try to prevent this from happening. Please see our article on what a legitmate Tai Chi instructor should know and do your diligence (by being an informed consumer) even when just looking for Tai Chi health benefits.
That is Tai Chi for Health
Thank you for reading Tai Chi for Health see you next time.
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