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 recently ran two VCE: Success and Resilience workshops for Westall Secondary College students at their school camp in Neerim East.
The camp is called Forest Edge and it’s about one and half hour drive from my place; through the back hills with long winding roads and lovely bush scenery. It rained all the way there but it was a very relaxing drive though on the way back my fuel tank empty sign flashed and I was a long way from a service station but I managed to get to one just outside of Yarra Junction.
I’m having fun, as usual, running our Pozitive Kidz are happy kidz six week program. The focus is on building self esteem from a Tai Chi perspective.
The kids love the speedy Tai Chi drill. This is where I stand out in front of about 30-40 students and yell out various posture names and then they have to quickly jump into position.
For example I’ll yell out names such as;
I was in contact with a student wellbeing teacher at a secondary school recently regarding our conneXions (Y9), Top Tens (Y10), and Success and Resilience (VCE) workshops. We discussed the possibility of running workshops with all her Year 10 students.
She wanted to know if I could run a workshop with a large number of students, as it would be cost effective because of their limited budget.
It was tempting, but I explained to her that I no longer run workshops for large groups of students at secondary schools because I don’t think they are effective when compared with working with a small group. Particularly when it involves a very interactive physical art such as Tai Chi.
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.