Tai Chi - New York

What is Tai Chi?

Tai Chi Chuan is a whole-person exercise developed in China. Borrowing moves from the fighting art of Kung Fu. Tai Chi slowed the pace and softened this ancient system, emphasizing health and spiritual benefits over martial applications. Graceful and dance-like, this gentle, meditative exercise develops the body through posture and breathing. Tai Chi improves balance, helps prevent falls, helps reduce blood pressure, increases immunity and may help reduce symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia.

Practiced daily by millions of Chinese, Tai Chi attracted attention in the US as exotic and beautiful moves that endow mystical powers.

A Bill Moyers PBS series featured frail-seeming masters using Chi (energy) to overwhelm superior strength and numbers. While the program dramatically illustrated Tai Chi's soft power, its emphasis on amazing feats obscured Tai Chi's real value for the average American.

Americans began taking Tai Chi seriously for its health benefits when studies appeared in the most prestigious US medical journals. A Johns Hopkins University study found that regular Tai Chi practice nearly equals aerobic exercise in reducing blood pressure. In 1996 a study from Emory University School of Medicine found lowered blood pressure, increased balance and a nearly 50% reduction in falls for those practicing Tai Chi among the sample population of seniors.

Further studies have expanded the list of Tai Chi's health benefits. These include overall toning, improved posture and circulation, increased flexibility and strength. Emotional and spiritual benefits of Tai Chi include calming, centering, energizing, increased focus, sense of control, inner joy and decrease of depression in older adults.

Imagine the implications of these findings in terms of reducing the following: hospitalizations, medical treatments, injury (broken hips, for example), pain and suffering, lasting mobility difficulties, and even deaths resulting from high blood pressure, falls and complications. Imagine the implications of these findings in terms of increasing the following: strength, health, independence and overall well-being.

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