Stay cool, calm and collected with Tai Chi 2

Stay cool, calm and collected with Tai Chi

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By Marika Sboros

July 8, 2004

If you think a martial art is more about hurting than healing, then think again.

Tai Chi is an ancient Chinese martial art that is a powerful form of self-defence, and a profound system of health exercises, says internationally renowned South African Tai Chi master Edward Jardine.

Jardine heads the International Tai Chi Society, the oldest and largest school in the country, with branches in Gauteng, Durban, Cape Town, Mauritius, the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Finland and Australia. He will hold a workshop in Durban next week at the Empty Cup Centre run by instructor Quim Roque, and in Johannesburg later this year.

Of course the martial art applications are important, says Jardine, but Tai Chi is known as much for its health benefits as for its warlike properties.

Last year, Time magazine devoted a report to Tai Chi, calling it "the perfect exercise".

That may be true, but the Chinese believe the best form of self-defence is against ill health, says Jardine. After all, when you know how to defend yourself, you feel good about yourself, he says. That releases feel-good endorphins that boost the body's immune system.

You are also less likely to be an attacker's target if you move with the confidence that you can defend yourself, he says.

Tai Chi principles of focus, awareness, balance, flow and harmony, emphasise avoiding conflict or neutralising it, if possible. "No conflict, nobody gets hurt," says Jardine.

A major benefit of Tai Chi is the nature of its practice, that makes it suitable for students to begin at any age, he says. His students range in age from 15 to more than 80.

While practitioners praise Tai Chi's physical, psychological and even spiritual benefits, the Time report says it's what Tai Chi does for the body that has attracted attention in the West.

"In many ways, researchers are just catching up to what tens of millions of people in China and Chinatowns around the rest of the world already know about Tai Chi," the Time report says.

Legend has it that Tai Chi can ward off 640 ailments, retard the ageing process and increase life expectancy.

In the East, and increasingly in South Africa, people say it improves many ailments from arthritis to asthma, insomnia, nervous ailments, even sexual dysfunction. Medical science has yet to substantiate all the claims, but researchers are busy trying.

Jardine says Tai Chi doesn't cure anyone of anything. "It is simply a system for toning and balancing the body, and creating the environment in which it can heal itself," he says.

Time quotes scientists at the Oregon Research Institute in the US as saying Tai Chi offers the greatest benefit to older healthy people who are relatively inactive. Other studies show that regular practice of Tai Chi can "oil" joints, improve circulation and reduce falls among the elderly.

In China, people who do Tai Chi regularly for years don't have anything like the high incidence of heart disease and high blood pressure that plagues Westerners.

This is due, in part, to the emphasis on squatting and strengthening of leg muscles, especially the upper thighs that play an important role in pumping blood back up to the heart and brain.

"People with strong, healthy legs are most likely to have a healthy heart," Jardine says.

Some forward-thinking US and UK cardiologists already prescribe Tai Chi for patients with heart disease, and those recovering from surgery. So do some local doctors.

Dr Martin Smith is a hepatobiliary-pancreatic surgeon and professor of surgery at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. He has been practising Tai Chi for more than 13 years and is lyrical about its benefits.

He regularly uses its breathing techniques on his patients post-operatively, and believes they would all benefit if they carried on with Tai Chi.

Smith says Tai Chi helped him avoid surgery for spinal nerve problems - the result of his "ergonomically unfriendly" work.

Smith has to perform difficult operating procedures, often for hours at a time, that require getting into "difficult postures" that put a strain on his back and spine.

For more information, contact the International Tai Chi Society on 083 267 1134.

To understand exactly how Tai Chi improves health, you would need to know something about ancient Chinese medicine, the interplay of "yin and yang" (complementary opposites in the body and the world around you), the meridian system (energy channels through the body), the philosophies of three great sages - Lao Tzu, Confucius and the Buddha - and the concept of "chi" (energy).

Or you could just focus on chi. It is a strange concept for the Western mind, but one that permeates ancient Eastern traditional healing systems, as well as the new physics of modern science.

Chi refers to the body's natural, life-giving force that is present in us all, and the universe around us, says South African Tai Chi master Edward Jardine.

We either accumulate it, like a battery, and use it to boost our health, or we dissipate it through lifestyle habits, as well as stress, trauma, pollution and the competitive urge, he says. When the body's stores of chi run low, we become increasingly prone to fatigue and illness.

Regular practice of Tai Chi, with its twisting postures and regular, deep breathing, helps to accumulate, store and generate chi in the body.

It is said to exercise the connective tissue on the body's skeletal frame, which in turn improves flexibility, increases blood circulation, and ensures a greater supply of oxygen and minerals to bones, organs and glands - a boon for depressed immune systems and for those suffering from arthritis.

Not for nothing is Tai Chi known as "invisible acupuncture".

The nature of its practice, with characteristic twisting, turning and spiralling movements, is designed to benefit specific organs. Along the way, it creates a form of "internal massage" that invigorates all the body's vital organs and functions.

Tai Chi is also described as a form of "moving meditation" and "stillness in motion", because it helps to focus and relax the mind.

At the heart of Tai Chi practice, say teachers, is the many health benefits that will flow from a life lived according to the laws of nature.

In effect, as one writer so eloquently puts it, this involves learning to "bend with the wind and become a part of it, rather than attempting to resist it".

In China and other parts of the East, it is common to see people in parks moving in slow motion in the early morning mist as if they are swimming through air, and boxing shadows.

That's Tai Chi and its popularity is growing worldwide. Tai Chi Chuan, to give it its full name, literally translated, means the supreme ultimate fist. It developed about 700 years ago, but some experts say it originated much earlier.

These days, Tai Chi flourishes in parks and schools throughout mainland China, and in hospitals. It is respected for its preventive and curative benefits, and is an acknowledged path for improved physical and mental health and wellbeing.

It is said to be the highest form of the "internal" martial arts systems, as opposed to the external styles such as karate and shaolin.

When done slowly, Tai Chi is a "soft" martial art.

Tai Chi is a form of Chi Kung, the ancient Chinese traditional healing system that has become a fad in the West. Some Chi Kung schools have become like cults and people are advised to be cautious when consulting a Chi Kung "doctor". They should check on qualifications and training.