Yes, three treasures that are very important.
Three Great Treasures
Tai Chi Tip: Chi Flow
Raise your arms up and out in front of your body until they are parallel to the ground. Now lower your arms to the sides of your body.
Repeat this eight times.
As you slowly move your arms up and down think of the phrase ‘hardly moving’ – this will help slow your movements.
Remember the slower you go the more you will feel the Chi flow.
What is Tai Chi Chuan? Part 1 Hand Form
Tai Chi Chuan is a health and self defence system.
There are various styles of Tai Chi and the major styles are Yang, Wu, Chen, Sun, Wu Hao, and all the styles comprise of five sections: The Hand Form – Push Hands – Chi Kung/Nei Kung – Self Defence – Weapons (sword, sabre, spear).
In this five part series I’ve selected one clip from each of the sections of Tai Chi to give you an appreciation of what they look like.
Part One – The Hand Forms selections are random, as there are a huge variety of Tai Chi examples on YouTube and they vary in techniques. I’ve selected samples of five of the major styles of Tai Chi
Eddie’s Story
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.
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.
I’m a Travelling Man ….
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‘.