Tai Chi for health & wellbeing
One of the things I most enjoy about teaching Tai Chi is when a student has an ‘aha’ experience.
It happened the other day during a private Tai Chi lesson. My student told me he was experiencing pain in the neck area caused by a medical condition. I asked him to try a Chi Kung breathing technique to dissolve the pain. He did and within 7 seconds the pain was gone.
I happened to catch a thread on a Tai Chi discussion group and one person mentioned he was bored with the Tai Chi form.
Well, I nearly fell out my chair when I read this and thought, ‘how could you become bored with a Tai Chi form?’ I’ve been practising the Wu style form for twenty five years and I’m still fascinated by the intricacies of the form.
I’ve just started to relearn another Wu style spear form and have found the count method makes it easier to remember the moves.
It’s a technique I teach beginners during my Tai Chi classes, private lessons and presentations.
All it involves is counting out aloud each movement of a posture. The number of counts depends on how many individual movements there are in the posture you are practicing.
For example one of the spear postures I’m learning has four separate movements. Here’s what I do: [Read more…]
Learning is a treasure which follows its owner everywhere
It’s been a very busy Tai Chi week.
I ran seven workshops and one short introduction on Tai Chi at a primary school.
The workshops are based on my ‘Pozitive Kidz are happy kidz’ program which focuses on building self-esteem from a Tai Chi perspective.
It was fun watching the prep students crack up laughing with my ‘teethy’ prop and ‘monkey brain’ explanation regarding self talk.
I’ve run these workshops for several years and learned earlier that teaching children Tai Chi in a traditional way is almost impossible.
They get too impatient and bored.
So I bring in my props, play games and use humour to teach and emphasise simple techniques they can do easily and quickly if they feel either stressed or lethargic.
It’s not boring because I never know what mood a class is in or what level of energy they have until I am standing in front of them.
So I have to quickly assess what needs to be done to capture their attention and maintain their enthusiasm.
And the best way to do that is to have my own Yin Yang energies balanced so my Chi can flow smoothly.
How do I do that?
I focus on having fun!