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Tai Chi for health & wellbeing

 

 

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Archives for 2011

Understanding Yin Yang

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To understand and appreciate the philosophy of Yin Yang is a never ending journey and takes years of study and practice.

When I deliver a presentation with my colleague Sue James, and need to cover Yin Yang in a very short time I use the ‘Yin Yang arm exercise’.

The ‘Yin Yang arm exercise’ works for adults in our facilitation work – children in our Pozitive Kidz are happy kidz workshops – secondary students Year 7-12 students.

Here’s how the ‘Yin Yang arm exercise’ works.

  1. Hold out your arm in front of you to about shoulder high
  2. Now stretch your arm out further until you feel a slight strain – that is extreme Yang
  3. Drop your arm down to your thigh – that is extreme Yin
  4. Now hold your arm out in front of you again
  5. Bend your are elbow slightly
  6. Now the outstretched arm is relaxed

By bending the elbow slightly you now have Yin in your outstretched arm. There are no longer extremes of Yin and Yang in your arm.

The idea of this exercise is how in Tai Chi you can maintain postures for long periods of time  i.e. there must be Yin and Yang in all postures.

I’ve demonstrated this exercise for children as young as five years old to mature adults in their eighties.

To really understand Yin Yang you need to go beyond theory and practice and feel it in your Tai Chi form and Chi Kung exercises.

 

Footnote: Basic explanation: Yang – active energy. Yin – inactive energy

 

 

 

Rainy Day Tai Chi

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It’s been raining for the past few days here so I haven’t had a chance to practice my Tai Chi form outside.

Today I’ll practice the form indoors.

The difficulty is that I’ve haven’t enough clear space to practice the entire form continously.

So rather than miss out on my scheduled training session I’ll go to Plan B.

Plan B in this case is to perform the form in a stop start manner without focusing on continous movement.

For each point of the form I stop and hold the posture for 5 seconds. Then go to the next point.

For example, let’s look at the opening posture.

  • Raise arms up – stop
  • bend elbows – stop
  • lower hands – stop

Because of the weather conditions this is a good alternative than not practicing at all.

So, don’t let rainy days stop you from practicing.

Adapt and keep practicing!

 

 

Kitchen Clock Tai Chi

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After this morning’s Tai Chi hands form practice it’s time to get out my electronic kitchen clock.

I’ve noticed my time for completing the long form varies according to when I practice. Afternoon sessions are shorter than a morning session. Usually I complete the form between 15-20 minutes. More often closer to the 15 minute mark.

I need to get some consistency in my form practice so for the next few sessions I’ll use my little kitchen clock timer and focus on building the duration of the form to 20 minutes. And I’ll record each form session to achieve may target.

It’s easy to speed through the long form in say 12 minutes which is not a good workout. In the past the kitchen clock has slowed me down because I’m aware I’m timing myself.

When I develop a consistent 20 minute workout I’ll put the kitchen clock back where it belongs.

In the kitchen!

 

 

 

Weapons Training Without Weapons

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I’ve been practicing my double fan form and the other day I was at a picnic in a park and forgot to bring my fans along.

So I searched around for a couple of sticks about the same size of the fans in length, and practised the form.

I try and practice on a regular basis and if do not have my Tai Chi weapons I improvise and practice a weapon form without the weapon.

It certainly makes you concentrate on other parts of the body when you do this. Sometimes when you practice a weapons’ form you can focus too much on the weapon  itself and not enough on your body balance or movement.

Eventually you just ‘do’ and not focus on your weapon. But every now and then it’s good to focus on other aspects of your weapon form.

So when you ‘do’ it all comes together.

Besides using sticks you can also imagine you are holding a weapon and practice a weapon form either mentally or physically.

So the next time you forget or can’t use a weapon in a particular space –  why not practice your weapons training without weapons.