Browsing Archive: November, 2015
Posted by Fiona Anderson. on Monday, November 30, 2015,
Well, very few people ask this question. It's just what they expect, that tai chi should be slow, but the why is important. Doing it slowly allows you to feel where the weight is with each movement, which helps with your balance. More than that, it also strengthens your legs over time, just as much as hard exercise, but in a low-impact way. Then again, over time you have the opportunity to develop mindfulness:
Think of riding a bike - when you first start, everything not only feels strange, bu...
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Posted by Fiona Anderson. on Wednesday, November 18, 2015,
Whenever I see tai chi on tv, it always seems to be old people in parks. Fair enough really, that's the idea I had of tai chi before I started doing it. So it was a bit of a surprise to turn up at an indoor tai chi lesson and find one person waving a sword around and another person twirling a spear, neither of whom were particularly aged...
The younger you start tai chi, the better, as with anything - children have their brains much more switched on to absorb things! However, I took up tai chi...
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Posted by Fiona Anderson. on Wednesday, November 18, 2015,
Many people who come to tai chi are very eager to achieve the smooth flowing movements - myself included when I started out.
However, it's best just to practise getting the weighting on the feet/legs right first, because if the arms are smoothly flowing and the feet/legs are all wrong, you're not actually achieving anything - the whole body needs to be moving as one unit.
So take your time to get the feet and legs feeling right with the proper weighting, before you get concerned about smoothly ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Fiona Anderson. on Tuesday, November 17, 2015,
This week, I read in the paper that having strong legs was a good indicator for staving off dementia an extra 5 years. One theory is that people who have strong legs are generally fitter, but another theory is that having strong legs ensures better blood circulation, so the brain gets more oxygen and nutrients.
Not being a medical specialist, I can't comment on either theory, but doing tai chi and/or chi kung (qigong) will help strengthen your legs, as both are done standing. Indeed one of th...
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Posted by Fiona Anderson. on Monday, November 16, 2015,
It's so nice to be out in the parks in Autumn, with the leaves changing colour and falling! Today I went to Kensington Gardens (which has a lovely setting of fountains and trees) and practised in the peaceful setting - very satisfying.
There are many benefits to practising in parks, but today's unexpected one was that I was assailed by lots of ideas for blog topics, cascading into a list of 20+ items, so the next 20+ days will be one idea after another. I hope you find them enjoyable and useful!
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Posted by Fiona Anderson. on Sunday, November 15, 2015,
While we have a number of different types of clients (corporate / groups / individuals / etc), I always like doing community health events, because it's nice to give people the opportunity to engage with all sorts of services. The latest such event was a mixture of organisations: physical health, mental health, sports, healty eating, kids' activities and henna decorating.
I arrived early enough that I could talk to people from each of these organisations, including MIND (who had requested I do...
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Posted by Fiona Anderson. on Saturday, November 14, 2015,
With Autumn here and Winter imminent, it's time to talk about avoiding falls. Last year, a lot of the groups seen had someone with a broken wrist or ankle, caused by slipping on leaves or (later) on snow. Ask your instructor to show you one an exercise we do that helps people avoid slipping and falling!
The main problem with falling is that people fall forward or backward and attempt to save themselves with putting out their hands, which is how they get broken wrists. The exercise your instruc...
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