Tai Chi for health & wellbeing
I was at a aged care center the other day runnng my Chair Chi session for residents and across the room, sitting on a chair was a white poodle.
The dog, bared it’s teeth, growled at me and must have thought I was an intruder. Well, I was, but a friendly intruder and it took a while before the poodle settled down but it still stared at me.
So far I have delivered two Chair Chi workshops in the aged care sector. One for a nursing home and one for a retirement village. Next week I have two more sessions booked so my workshops are starting to take off.
And what a pleasure it is in working with elderly people.
It was fun and inspiring not only to share the Chi exercises but also the wonderful conversations and stories during the session.
Several years ago I travelled overseas by plane from Australia to Europe for a holiday.
Every now and again I did some Chi Kung exercises in my seat to stretch out, narrowly avoiding the flight attendant running over my toe or knocking my knee with the drinks trolley.
After several hours I needed to do some Tai Chi so I ventured to the back of the plane to practice and get the Chi to flow.
Well, it was an adventure because I had to manoeuvre my way through a fog of smoke that appeared from the back seats, just below the ‘no smoking’ sign. There was no point in telling the attendants as some of them were smoking as well.
I was probably better off practicing on the wing of the plane but it would have been a bit draughty so I decided to back myself against the wall and adopt a standing posture.
Embrace the tree posture didn’t work as I had passing traffic occassionaly bump into me. I was tempted to do so fajing but that would have been unsociable.
I settled for a standing posture with my arms to the side and visualised the movements from the form. I could feel the Chi flow again and eventually returned to my seat and made sure I tucked my long skinny legs in, to avoid the trolley menace.
I felt energised and was happy I was able to do my ‘really small frame Tai Chi’ in a confined space.