The first time Kevin Lannon saw tai chi was when his nephew was involved at a local Karate event. That evening lots of martial artists performed on the stage and then a couple came on. They moved slowly, in symmetry, connected in every way.
“Watching it calmed me down. It was the most beautiful thing I had seen. These two energies work together. I thought to myself I would like to do that someday. It planted the seed,” Kevin stated.
In April 2022, my husband Patrick and I went to Götzens, Austria (a community in the district of Innsbruck). It is an amazing place to explore, and Maria Gandler and her team made it very attractive and welcoming to participate in their Tai Ski program!
Each January, millions of people resolve to live a healthier lifestyle in the coming year. Particularly given all of the toxic and traumatic events that have played out on the global stage in recent years, one of the healthiest New Year’s resolutions you can make is to choose effective ways of reducing stress levels. You certainly can’t prevent all stress-causing events, but you can find healthy ways of coping with them. Here are some ideas for stress reduction in the new year.
When you think about Tai Chi, you might think about a low-impact form of exercise that helps older adults improve balance and muscle strength—and you would be correct. However, Tai Chi has also been proven to be beneficial for a wide variety of other health-related concerns, including lung disease. Here are some of the benefits of practicing Tai Chi if you or a loved one has a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
I recently gave an online workshop on balance for the Tai Chi Foundation’s students and teachers. I was inspired to do this by one of my students who reported, after doing an exercise from our Eight Ways course called Walking on Thin Ice, that she had thought she had good balance, but this wasn’t true anymore. She was probably in her 50s. This led me to a little research, and I discovered that balance tends to be reasonably well-preserved until a person is in their 50s and then it starts to wane rapidly. Rapidly!
Stressful days can take a toll on us. And we've had our share for the past few years. How are you coping? For many, Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays can be triggering. And for others, shorter days in winter can be difficult. Learn how to manage and live a full life during life's curve balls.
This post is not medical advice or a substitute for professional evaluation and treatment. If you or someone you know are experiencing a mental health crisis, call 9-8-8 or 800-273-TALK.
It was to be my first experience practicing tai chi in a room filled with other people at the week-long Tai Chi Retreat on Whidbey Island, Washington this summer. I had finished learning the last third of the form about a month prior through an online class. I was anxious and internally repeating the mantras, “I can do this. I can do this without looking ridiculous.” Clearly, I have a bit left to learn about the mental and spiritual aspect of tai chi.
