Breathing and Tai Chi

September 21, 2013
When you start doing tai chi, you should breathe naturally, unless you are told otherwise by your instructor.

In tai chi form learning, your breathing will eventually settle down, as you keep practising the form. While some schools teach specific breathing for each sequence, if you just keep doing tai chi, then your breathing will come right of itself. Relax and breathe normally and you will be fine.

Being told otherwise by your instructor will happen, if you are learning chi kung (qigong), as these are specific movements, designed to help deepen your breathing and circulate your energy. Most people breath with shallow breaths, meaning the air at the bottom of the lungs can get stale. Deep breathing will clean out this stale air. Chi Kung also addresses your energy - if you come to it feeling exhausted, you will feel much more alive and energised afterwards.

There are many, many different chi kung sets out there - don't even try to learn it from a book or video for 4 reasons:
Firstly, some of the stuff in those books is aimed at advanced students, and beginner students will suffer adverse effects, since their bodies are unprepared. Like diving before you've learned the doggy paddle...
Secondly, your instructor can correct your movements. Even if you're just copying, it's very easy to miss observing something critical, like weight shifts, position of feet, knees, etc. Your instructor will gently help you correct these, so that you get the most benefit from the set.
Thirdly, many, if not most, schools only teach chi kung from the teacher to the student, it's never written down or videod. This means what's in those books / videos that are out there may not even be fully correct.
Lastly, some schools will teach progressively different chi kung sets, as you progress up through the levels - as your body becomes more loose and relaxed and able to do more. Using a book or video means you won't know what the differences are and won't be able to progress upwards in your own practise of chi kung.

Anyway, relax and keep breathing!



 

Frustration is a good sign!

September 10, 2013
I have noticed (both in my students and in myself), that when the feeling of being frustrated strikes, it is usually the prelude to some kind of breakthrough! Just when you think you're getting nowhere seems to be the signal that you're about to proceed to a new understanding, or to being able to do something that has been difficult which now becomes easier.

So don't give up to feeling frustrated, but instead regard it as signalling that you're about to advance a step further in your own progr...
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Baffled by being told to feel my elbows :)

September 8, 2013
Ok, so there I was doing this exercise, where the hands are moving in big circles in time with the hips.... Afterwards a friend told me I'd improve if I could do it feeling like my elbows are hanging down off my hands.

To say this sounded weird is an understatement. Anyway, I tried it, and could feel ... nothing different! But it preyed on my mind a couple of days (still no difference though) and my subconscious must have been working on it, because by the third day I just found myself feeling...
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Stand up for health!

August 20, 2013
I have been struck by the sheer number of people in motorised wheelchairs that I see every day... combined with tv adverts for circulation boosters and the like.

From my perspective as a former couch potato, I think plain truth is: use it or lose it! 

One of the most basic exercises you can do in most tai chi styles, is standing in a horse stance (legs like you're riding a horse, knees slightly bent), with your arms in front of you (as if you're holding a giant dinosaur egg pointing away from ...
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magazine article for Your Voice

August 16, 2013
Recently I was asked to write something encouraging for people with mental health issues, to show them there is hope!

This has now appeared as an article for the magazine Your Voice Extra (of the charity "Rethink Mental Illness") at:

http://yourvoiceextra.tumblr.com/

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Reducing stress

August 11, 2013
Since I started tai chi, my stress levels have gone right down. I put this down to several factors: just putting my mind in the movements, took it away and out of negative thoughts; increasing the mind/body connection decreased the intellectualisation of every event; progressing through the form and then through the levels gave me a sense of achievement I wasn't getting elsewhere. 

On top of these things, training with people from all different walks of life, meant that I couldn't talk shop w...
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Patience

August 10, 2013
Our society is a very impatient one. People seem to want instant gratification, instant responses, instant results.  I read somewhere that learning anything well takes 30,000 hours of practise.

Two opposite approaches, and two opposite types of outcome. With being prepared to  put in the time, you are demonstrating not only patience and persistence, but also that you are aiming for a meaningful life as a result. (*)

Anyway, patience with yourself is key to learning stuff. Not just don't worry ...
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Kindness

August 9, 2013
To  be good at tai chi, you need to learn to be kind to yourself. Many people understand about being kind to others being a good thing, but then neglect themselves.... Think about back at school - did you learn best from the teachers who humiliated you or those who were kind to you? Well, it's the same with tai chi, if you have kind teachers and learn to be kind to yourself, your tai chi will improve.

Start by making opportunities to  say something kind to someone else every day, then up this...
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One off event bookings

July 26, 2013
I get a number of one off event bookings, including 2 different ones recently.

The first was for the London College of Communication, who were having a wellness day, with tai chi as part of that. We all went to a park near to the college, where there were lovely trees and flowers to practise among; a beautiful setting.

With everyone being a beginner, I concentrated on things that everyone could follow and feel good - a mixture of warm ups, tai chi  walking, single forms, with a bit of chi kung ...
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Tai Chi for the elderly

July 26, 2013
At a recent event, I was asked if tai chi is suitable for the elderly. While I was reassuring the asker that people at the club I go to include those in their seventies and eighties, it suddenly struck me that I don't think of these friends as "elderly". This is because they do the same training as everyone else and show none of the infirmities of age.

Indeed doing chi kung with one of those guys leading can be very challenging for the younger ones, as he goes on forever, like a chi kung mach...
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