Tai Chi for health & wellbeing
Can you get a cardiovascular workout from just standing still?
Well, recently I experimented with the basic Embrace the Tree posture which involves standing with your feet about shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent and holding both arms out in front of your chest, forming a circle.
As a rough guide I used the following generally accepted formula:
The other day I rolled out of bed at 5.50 am (my regular resurrection for a week day), showered and dressed and then slowly walked to my living room to practice my 20 minute standing practice called ’embrace the tree posture’.
During that walk I heard voices in my head:
“Do it later”
“I’m too tired”
“I can’t be bothered”
I know I shouldn’t have done it but I did. I couldn’t help myself.
I set the kitchen timer to 20 minutes, pressed the button, and then got into my embrace the tree posture. I checked my posture and then settled in for the duration.
As the minutes started ticking away I glanced at the digital read out on the kitchen timer and there was 11 minutes to go. What a dumb thing to do because those remaining 11 minutes felt like hours. And the reason why it felt that way was because I was now aware of how much time was left.
I’ve finally achieved my target of holding the ’embrace the tree’ stance for 20 minutes and it feels great. It’s taken 20 weeks but I did it. Even my knees haven’t protested too much which is a blessing.
I was concerned at the start that my knees would react in a negative way as they have done in the past when I tried to practice mid to low stances. I stopped doing those stances a long time ago to avoid the pain and damage to my knees (left knee weakened due to a previous injury). Please note that low and medium stances are beneficial and a very good workout if your knees can handle them. My knees can’t.
It’s taken sixteen weeks but I’ve gradually built up my standing ’embrace the tree posture’ to sixteen minutes.
And I haven’t had any major problems with my knees reacting against the stance. Apart from some minor soreness, the knees feel fine.
In the past I’ve tried to work through pain and practice lower stances which actually stressed my knees and caused pain. A silly attitude because it wasn’t in line with the Yin Yang philosophy of finding one’s balance. It took me a while to wake up to my self and focus on only doing exercises I could physically handle.