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Tai Chi for health & wellbeing

 

 

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Archives for March 2015

April 5: Push Hands in the Park

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Push Hands 3aI missed last month’s session due to work but I hope to be there this Sunday.

I always enjoy it and learn when Pushing Hands with various people.

When: Sunday – April 5

Time: 10.00am – 12 noon

Where: Fawkner Park – South Yarra (Armadale Road entrance), Melbourne, Australia

Friendly, non-competitive push hands (tui shou) practice and play for anyone – old, young, beginners, masters.

Team up with someone and discuss what you’d like to do – and what you’d not like to do!

Ten minute exchanges timed by a bell – but you can rest as well!

Learn, share and enjoy.

All welcomed.

Chair Chi: ‘This is Rubbish’

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ElderlySmileAAs we started our Chair Chi session, she looked at me fiercely and muttered to the resident next to her ‘this is rubbish, I’m not doing it’.

I ignored her comment and continued on with the session using my peripheral vision to occasionally check on her demeanor.

For most of the session it didn’t change, she just glared at me and occassionaly fell asleep.

Then it happened.

In the last five minutes of the one hour session she woke up, looked at me and then started to move her arms in time with the movement I was demonstrating.

And to top it off she even smiled!

That was my favourite moment of the day and it made it all worthwhile. Earlier in the day I’d delivered two chair chi workshops at another aged care centre in the morning, had a short lunch and was tired.

Just goes to show you that chair chi ‘rubbish’ can turn into a treasure if you are patient and keep trying.

 

Footnote: The image here is a generic one and not that of the resident mentioned in this post.

Mildly Extreme Yang Chair Chi

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chair-chi-training-picIn my previous post I mentioned an extreme form of interruption while running an aged care Chair Chi session recently.

Here are some mild extreme yang interruptions I’ve had since runnning Chair Chi sessions for low care and high care residents at aged care centres. Thankfully, the interruptions have been in the minority of the 350+ workshops I have delivered.

  • Opera music played over the PA system
  • A visitor with a large dog, walked through our circle of residents, unannounced, and not asking permission, sat down and just watched
  • A fire alarm sounding as we were practicing our calming abdominal breathing technique (an appropriate time to so)
  • People in the background conducting loud conversations during a session
  • Squeaky trolleys reverberating through corridors
  • A duck sound coming through a PA system as a prelude to an announcement
  • Staff preparing lunch while running a chair chi session in a dining room
  • Workmen drilling away in a corridor

It certainly has given me the opportunity to practice what I preach – stay focused and remain calm!

Extreme Yang Chair Chi

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chair-chi-training-picI run regular Chair Chi sessions for various aged care centres and the other day I had an ‘extreme chair chi’ experience.

The residents were seated in a circle as I walked into the room. I sat down and welcomed them to our Chair Chi session with the usual banter.

Then it started.

An industrial vacuum cleaner nearby roared to life and drowned out my voice, distracting the elderly residents, and making it very difficult to run an exercise and meditative session.

All I could do was pace myself as my voice couldn’t compete with that extreme noise. I tried to get the residents to focus on me as much as possible but after 45 minutes of noise (only a 10 minute silence inbetween) we decided to wrap up the scheduled 60 minute session. The co-ordinator came over and whispered in my year suggesting it was okay to finish early.

Some days one has to deal with extreme Yang interruptions or end up sucked into the void.