Chris Chi

Tai Chi for health & wellbeing

 

 

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Go Slow Feel More

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Snail on leaf

The long form in Wu Stye Tai Chi contains 37 postures, repeats of some of those postures, and transitions – it usually takes between 15-20 minutes to practice. If I’m busy, sometimes I tend to rush it and end up practicing for only15 minutes

15 minutes is a good workout, but 20 minutes is even better. I’ve found when I slow it down to 20 minutes I can feel the Chi more and have a sense of being more grounded.

If you don’t know a long Tai Chi form. then the alternative is to learn a short Tai Chi form of, say, about 4 minutes and practice that form five times in a row.

For those readers who have learned The Eight Treasures in one of my Aged Care staff workshops, try to perform the set for 20 minutes and see if you notice the difference.

Either slow your movements even further, or increase the repetitions of each Treasure until you reach 20 minutes overall. For example, instead of 8 repetitions per Treasure perhaps increase it to 12-15 repetitions.

Eddie’s Story

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Eddie rarely moves while lying in his tub chair – he usually just watches or falls asleep during our Chair Chi sessions.

I always gently try to encourage him to participate, but for the past several sessions he had barely moved.

Then this day it happened! He moved his arms and legs – surprising and delighting one of the staff members watching nearby. It also delighted me, so I kept encouraging him and he began participating in the activities for much longer than in previous sessions.

Elderly man smiling

Because I’m at this aged care centre only once a month for an hour of Chair Chi, I don’t fully get to know residents’ levels of physical ability or cognitive awareness. All I can do is observe and be guided by their reactions.

But when you get a staff member who knows the residents and reacts in the way this one did when Eddie moved, then I know I’m on the right track.

A Portrait

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One of the residents at an aged care centre drew this portrait of me. He’d asked me previously to pose for him after one of the Chair Chi sessions I run for the centre.

I’ve never had the time to do so as I’m usually off to my next Chair Chi session elsewhere.

I suggested he draw a portrait of me from a photo on my website – and the next time I visited, I discovered he’d done exactly that!

He presented the drawing to me before our Chair Chi session and was very keen to find if I liked it. I said, ‘It’s great, thanks!’ Though words weren’t really enough to express how delighted I was.

We then had a brief conversation on his passion for drawing and what motivated him to start. We got so involved in our conversation that I found it difficult to stop talking and start the Chair Chi session!

But I managed to do so and he was smiling broadly, as one of the lifestyle staff wheeled him back into the circle with the other residents.

It’s moments like this that makes working in the aged care sector so very enjoyable.

I’m a Travelling Man ….

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Recently I had an email from a director in an Aged Care organisation from New York (USA) inquiring about our Chair Chi Training Program – and that’s encouraging.

So far over the past six years, I’ve run aged care workshops for staff across Australia and in Christchurch, New Zealand .

One of my dreams (I have many) is to travel internationally and run workshops in various countries.

I’ve realised part of that dream by running Tai Chi early morning sessions for attendees in Nepal and Belgium at Appreciative Inquiry conferences.

And I’ve provided Tai Chi energisers as part of Appreciative Inquiry workshops delivered by my colleague, Sue James, at an international school in Qingdao, China.

Besides Chair Chi sessions for residents and staff training workshops for aged care, I’m planning to further develop my Sports Chi program locally and eventually introduce it internationally.

It’s going to take a lot of work to fully realise my dream but, as Confucius once said, ‘A journey of thousand miles begins with a single step‘.

Be Still

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window-garden

It’s a lot easier keeping the body still than it is keeping the mind still. The other day I was working on my memoir in my living room, which faces the front garden. I looked out of the window and just gazed at the trees and flowers and sky for a while, not thinking about anything in particular. It was very refreshing and, as I was about to get back to my writing, it occurred to me I don’t do enough ‘gazing’ – a form of meditation that only requires you to be still.

I practice Tai Chi and Chi Kung several times a day. It’s invigorating and calming, but my mind is still active as I focus on various techniques and structures to perform each movement correctly. Gazing, or as some may call it day dreaming, is an effortless way of keeping the mind calm.

Even if I am very busy – and who isn’t these days – a few seconds or minutes of gazing can help reduce stress. My preference is to gaze while sitting down in a quiet and visually appealing surrounding without people around. I prefer not to do it lying down, or I’d probably fall asleep! I don’t do it standing or walking either, as I don’t want to be conscious of my body. That can sometimes distract me from being completely still.

Gazing is not only relaxing, but it can also activate creative thinking without thinking. Sometimes when I gaze, an idea or solution will pop into my head. Whereas trying to think can be a barrier to new ideas or to finding a solution to a particular problem.

As I sit here now, writing this post, I occasionally look out of the window and just gaze at the trees and sky. When I do that it feels very relaxing because my mind is still for a brief moment.