Tai Chi for health & wellbeing
Well, it’s that time of the year where I’m contacting secondary schools here in Melbourne about our Top Tens (Year 10) and VCE Success and Resilience workshops.
It’s high energy stuff mixed in with Tai Chi meditation so it certainly makes me work. I sometimes feel like a duck paddling across a lake. On the surface everything looks calm but below the surface the duck is furiously paddling its little feet along to propel itself forward.
I’m sure most teachers can relate to the ‘duck’ analogy.
Counter balance is an important concept and skill in Tai Chi.
Without it you are in danger of toppling over. It is difficult to achieve in the hands form and even more difficult when performing dynamic weapons’ forms such as the sabre, spear and staff.
I’ll focus on counter balancing in the weapons’ forms for this post.
When you lunge forward in either the sabre, spear and staff forms you need to be aware of anchoring your rear foot so you stay balanced.
Once you have lunged forward bring your focus and chi into your rear leg and down into the ground.
If your focus is only on the weapon and the direction you are going in – the momentum of your lunge may throw you off balance.
It may be an extreme shift where you stumble or a subtle shift where you are not properly grounded with your rear leg.
The counter balance technique acts as a brake and will make your form more stable and powerful.
Footnote: – This technique also applies to sword forms where you lunge forward.
Here’s a short clip from the Celebrating Story conference recently held here in Melbourne, Australia.
Sue and I presented our AQ/KQ of Story workshop and if you look closely you will see my rough head appearing briefly.
Also there is a few seconds of basic circle walking I did with a participant in our workshop.
And if you look very closely you might spot a silly looking St George the Dragon Slayer in one of the workshops. No idea who it is 🙂
Don’t blink or you will miss my performance!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyfctTgzUE0[/youtube]
Last week Sue and I ran our AQ/KQ of Story at the ‘Celebrating Story’ conference here in Melbourne Australia.
During our session I introduced participants to Tai Chi focusing on the theme of relationships in regards to story telling.
We did some push hands and Chi exercises which was new to the group. And we also did circle walking.
Here are some Tai Chi photos of the day and for an overview of the conference and more photos of the various activities go to Celebrating Story conference
Sue and I ran our AQ/KQ of Change workshop the other day and used Push Hands to demonstrate the nature of healthy work relationships.
The two themes we concentrated on were ‘adherence’ and ‘listening energy.’
It certainly made our audience focus on these themes in a physical way and it was something very different with regard to their experiences in understanding relationships.
The group consisted of leaders and managers who were there to learn about change.
Adherence was used to demonstrate that you need to stay in contact if you are to develop and maintain good relationships at work.
When you let go and there is no adherence, gaps exist and that’s where problems can creep in and affect the quality of a relationship.
Listening energy was also emphasised.
From a Tai Chi point of view, listening energy makes you aware of your opponents’ moves at all times.You can sense their energy through your arms.
From a relationship viewpoint, listening energy is the ability to focus and really hear what the other person is saying.
There were other aspects of Push Hands we went into regarding relationships – but that’s another post for later.
It was a great fun introducing the group to Tai Chi exercises and concepts in a practical way.
And we had a very good response from the group.