Tai Chi for Health-care Practitioners

I recently started taking TAI CHI lessons to improve my balance, flexibility, and coordination.

It looks pretty easy on movies but does take a fair amount of training. People like myself, who cannot dance or suffer from right to left confusion will need to practice to gain muscle and brain memory.

​​SML

The article Tai Chi for Health-care Practitioners emphasizes the value for health care practitioners helping their patients. The programs includes  “applications for balance, geriatrics, stress and pain management, oncolcogy, PTSD,TBI, polytrauma, autoimmune diseases, women’s health. orthopedic, neurological, cardiovascular and respiratory rehabilitation".

           

Wikipedia states that “Tai Chi generally provides health benefits. In all the forms of Tai Chi there are movements that involve briefly standing on one leg, which may improve balance; circular movements of the shoulders and wrists which improve suppleness and circulation; learning the sequence of the set movements may improve cognitive function such as concentration; the social atmosphere can sometimes forge friendships and alleviate loneliness and anxiety; and the exercise itself can boost a person's mood and alleviate depression.[3][4]”

                       

My wife figured out at the first lesson that all the hand and feet movement should be considered preparations for striking and/or blocking an opponent. She’s right to have intuited the relationship between this originally Chinese practice, and the martial arts.  Many in the far east are skilled in both.  Not having 2 left feet will help with the movements. The individual motions are easy but the linkage and flow take practice, practice, and practice.

           

In general, TAI CHI is another worthwhile avenue to explore as we have a tendency to live longer and become quite immobile. You may learn how to dance. And if not, you may be able to defend yourself better.

Using Yoga (or Pilates) to Restore Your Health

The article Restorative Yoga Poses articulates with pictures how to restore the body and maintain and improve fitness.

Yoga can be used as an organized way to improve strength, flexibility, balance, psychological relaxation, and a way to age gracefully.

When walking by a yoga class, the first impression is that you have to be really fit to participate and you do not want to make a fool out yourself. The reality is yoga practice is on a continuum and changes according to your level of experience and fitness.

The biggest challenge is walking in the room and participating. Nobody is watching you except the instructor and the practice is an experience not a competition.

A new student will quickly discover how out of shape they truly are and the potential for fitness, weight loss, and stress reduction. I am usually the fattest person in the room and have lost >20 pounds in 2 years. My balance is dramatically improved and twist sufficiently to back the car down the driveway.

The advantage of a class format is that the most unmotivated person’s challenge is only attendance. The fitness workout takes care of itself. The upper body, core strength, flexibility, and lower body strength will automatically improve over time.

I wish I had begun when I was fifty and not waited till Medicare age. This can be a senior citizen’s panacea to chronic pain, equilibrium, balance, and terrible upper body strength. Start with a few restorative classes and easily progress to better health. The spiritual side can be a life-guiding support system and can easily add to the improved physical health.  

For those who do not wish to incorporate a spiritual component within their exercise program, there is the equally restorative Pilates, named after its founder Joseph Pilates.  Pilates training is very available, perhaps even more-so than yoga. All of the benefits noted for yoga apply. While some Pilates exercises require use of devices (the main one called a “reformer,” though it has nothing to do with discipline!), there are also mat Pilates exercises that can be learned online (YouTube), which can easily be performed in one’s living room.

Whichever you choose, Yoga or Pilates, it is wise to take a bit of time each day to pursue one of these, especially as aging advances (which it does!).  These two body-training programs will help keep you sane, flexible (in body anyway), and able to negotiate gravity, which (regardless of its newfound waves) seems always ready to find ways to trip us up.  Be wise, have fun, and pick one of them.