What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You

This is the real question, isn't it?

Maybe someone has recommended Tai Chi or Qigong for you, or you've read some article that claims it's excellent for health or wellbeing or your particular health situation. Nine times out of ten the writers or recommenders do not practice themselves, so can't tell you exactly what amazing wonders are in store for you. I've written this guide to help you understand what you're getting into before you start.

A general caveat: Tai Chi and Qigong are not a quick solution to anything. They both take time and discipline to learn, but for those who take it, this journey is amazingly rewarding. Most people know within a few classes whether it's for them. You have nothing to lose by trying.

Any questions? Email me. I offer Qigong and Tai Chi classes each week. View the schedule and find out about my extremely reasonable fees here. I also offer occasional Sunday workshops. View upcoming workshops here.

Tai Chi and Qigong Can Help You:

Build a Better Relationship With Your Body
Modern living tends to disconnect us from our bodies. Most of us work at jobs that require us to sit for long periods of time, process information, and otherwise behave like floating minds barely anchored to the physical realm.

While any form of exercise will help your body, Tai Chi and Qigong are unique in their ability to increase body awareness so you can begin to remember how to enjoy having a body again.

Learn more here.


Feel Amazing
A while back, one of my students had a big grin on her face at the end of class. I asked her what was up.

"Everything feels like it's tingling and warm," she said. "Is that chi?"

It was.

"That's amazing," she said. "I've never felt anything like that before."

Start your journey toward feeling freaking amazing.



Learn to Use Your Mind Effectively
Through Tai Chi and Qigong, you learn to settle the mind down and focus it on what you are doing. I've learned over time to put a stop to the mental grinding and restless negative thinking that are the mind's favourite tricks. You can too.

Learn about becoming a Jedi.

Let Go of Your Baggage
Chances are you've got quite a bit of baggage. It's okay: we all do. It's part of the human deal. Unfortunately they don't hand you a pamphlet at birth that tells you that your job here is to let all of that go. Tai Chi and Qigong can help with that.

Here's how you can learn to let go.



Tweak Your Genes in the Right Direction
Every day, scientists are learning more about why genes express themselves the way they do. As it turns out, some genes are turned on or off according to what's going on in your environment. Surprise, the key here is stress: genes will tend to work in your favour if you are having more good experiences than bad. Tai Chi and Qigong are a way to ensure that you are getting in some solid, uplifting, energizing, feel-good experience each day.

Learn more about the fascinating research into the relationship between stress and gene expression.



Stand Up for Yourself
Tai Chi is a martial art, and I teach it that way. That does not mean that we start kicking and punching you on day one and requiring you to defend yourself. It means that stepping onto the Tai Chi path means that you will learn a better, stronger, more relaxed and confident way of being in the world.

I've written more about Tai Chi and the emotional implications of standing up for yourself here if you want to learn more. Go here to read a longer post about Tai Chi as martial art. Go here to learn for some quick info on Tai Chi and self-defense.

Receive Healing
Tai Chi method is martial art; Tai Chi purpose is healing and optimal health.

There is an enormous body of evidence to suggest that Tai Chi and Qigong both support healing on all levels: physical, emotional, and spiritual.

Learn more about some common health benefits of Tai Chi and Qigong.
For more specific information about using Tai Chi and Qigong for Health Recovery, see my series on that topic.



Distinguish Between What You Need and What You Don't
Tai Chi and Qigong work to enhance your "radar" - your intuitive sense of the world around you - at the same time as they increase your body awareness. All of a sudden, your body and emotions can talk to you in ways they haven't been able to in a long time. Sometimes they have a lot to say. This is a good thing, although it can be strange or a little uncomfortable at first.

Read more about developing discernment through Tai Chi and Qigong here.



Practice Something Deeply
We are a culture of samplers. One weekend we are skydiving; the next, we're learning shiatsu; then it's on to fly fishing and wine tasting and cheese making and and and. There is nothing wrong with trying new things, but after a while, all this experimenting, tasting, and flitting around is going to make you feel a little unreal. You owe it to yourself to sink into one thing for a while, and explore it thoroughly.

Learn more about sinking deeply into the world of Tai Chi and Qigong here.



Stop Being a Muggle
I'm going to be honest with you, this is the part of Tai Chi and Qigong practice that I had the most difficulty accepting and now it is the part through which I have learned the most profound lessons. The more you practice Tai Chi and Qigong, the more you become immersed in a perspective on life that is...different from the common, regular, mundane, material way of looking at things.

When you enter the world of chi / energy and start to really work with it, you gently and gradually shift your perceptual abilities, and the terms with which you interact with the world.

Read more here.

Tired of Being a Muggle? Try Tai Chi and Qigong

When I first started taking Tai Chi, I was all, "energy, schmenergy." I was thoroughly immersed in the perspective that we are biological mechanisms, and that's all there is to it. In other words, I'd been beaten down by my upbringing and, to some degree, my education. I remember the first time I was pouring sweat after an intensive class, feeling totally amazing and buzzing. I showed my instructor my hands: they were mottled and red and pulsing.

"Chi man," he said.

Slowly, I started to connect what I was feeling with the terminology of Tai Chi and Qigong. I opened my mind, in other words, and started exploring the world of energy healing, of connecting to nature and natural energies, synchronicity, and chi. There is a whole other way of doing things, of being in the world, of perceiving, that is nothing short of magic. Like the man said, nobody can be told what it is. You have to see it for yourself.

If you've read this far you've probably gotten tired of the mechanistic view of reality ("reality") you were taught in school. Remember when you were a kid and everything was potentially magical? If you're of the right age or disposition, remember how jealous you were that Harry Potter got to go to Hogwarts and your acceptance letter never came?

What I've learned through my twenty plus years of study of Tai Chi, Qigong, meditation, guided visualization, Reiki, and all this woo woo energy schmenergy stuff is this:

There are many gateways in this life that you can use to take back that magical world you were at home in when you were a kid. Tai Chi and Qigong are one route to slowly and gently re-immersing yourself in a way of being and understanding that is more holistic, all-encompassing, and takes into account all of you - mind, body, emotions, and spirit. A complete understanding of life and its mysteries is your birthright. It's everyone's birthright.

This post is part of a series called What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You. Look for more parts in the coming weeks, or click "What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You" at the bottom of this post. 

I offer weekly classes and occasional workshops. For my class schedule and information about fees, click here. For upcoming workshops, click here. 

Want to Practice Something Deeply? Tai Chi and Qigong Might Be for You

When you get into Tai Chi and Qigong, if you decide it is for you, you'll have something in your life you can sink into deeply. These disciplines can be learned in a weekend workshop, but they offer greater and greater rewards the more deeply you get into them. There is always more to learn! I know and offer instruction in six different internal martial arts and three different Qigong routines, not to mention Push Hands and standing and sitting meditation. I am always learning, so there is more always being added to the mix. Even if you decide that you only want one Qigong routine or you would like to stick with Tai Chi, working with these disciplines is a never-ending process of opening up the body, deepening technique, accessing healing, and increasing self-awareness and awareness of the world around you. This is deep stuff!

Why is it good to practice something deeply? This is the only antidote to modern culture's constant barrage of distractions, the heavy and persistent influx of messages, the insistent buzz of technologies, the never ending demands for attention that keep us focusing outward, but never let us settle into ourselves. As much as I like social networking and the abundance of information online, I firmly believe that we are not built to withstand this constant superficial onslaught. We are deep divers. Our very makeup creates a longing in us to access stillness, to flow with life, and to grasp the pearls that sit on the deepest parts of the ocean floor. There's a satisfaction in deep practice that you can't get anywhere else.

This post is part of a series called What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You. Look for more parts in the coming weeks, or click "What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You" at the bottom of this post. 

I offer weekly classes and occasional workshops. For my class schedule and information about fees, click here. For upcoming workshops, click here. 

Learn What You Need and What You Don't Through Tai Chi and Qigong

One of my best friends (and Tai Chi / Qigong buddies) complained to me a while ago that she couldn't stand Doritos any more.

"I never used to think twice about eating junk food," she said. "Oh sure, I know it's not good for me, but last week I thought I would have just a bit, and I felt horrible."

There are many things that you can buy at the grocery or convenience store that look like food, but are not food. They might even sort of taste like food, but they won't really feed you. The more you are in tune with the needs of your body, the more you'll be able to recognize what will support your health and wellbeing, and what won't. (This can come in the form of upset stomach / sudden awareness of flu-like symptoms. Chances are you always felt that way after eating junk food, but you just didn't notice.)

This goes beyond diet, though. The more you get in touch with what feeling amazing is like, the more you'll become aware of the situations, activities, and (sadly) the people that leave you feeling drained, upset, or uncomfortable. There are many things you can do to manage these situations, activities, and people. You can consider leaving the situation, working to change it, or accepting that it is difficult and work to protect yourself as much as possible when you have to engage with it. You can stay in the situation and draw new boundaries to make it functional for you. The important thing to realize is that it is good to recognize how your everyday activities affect you, and that you have direct control over whether and how you engage in those activities.

Tai Chi and Qigong help you establish a better and clearer baseline for feeling good and steady on your feet. The more you practice, the more you want to perpetuate that good feeling throughout your entire day, and the more you'll discover which things, activities, and people support that. This is called discernment - knowing the difference between one thing and another. It doesn't mean that the things, activities, and people who don't make you feel good are bad and deserve to be told so or rejected wholesale or whipped in the streets. It means that you have a choice about whether and how you want to engage with them.

This post is part of a series called What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You. Look for more parts in the coming weeks, or click "What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You" at the bottom of this post. 

I offer weekly classes and occasional workshops. For my class schedule and information about fees, click here. For upcoming workshops, click here. 

Ordinary Healing and Health Maintenance Through Tai Chi and Qigong

I'm currently working on a series of posts on health recovery using Tai Chi and Qigong. While dramatic healing from serious illness is possible through Tai Chi and Qigong, I wanted to point to some of the studies that show it can improve overall health and help with lower-grade chronic health issues.

Many years ago, I watched a good friend and fellow Tai Chi player go through a major health incident. He was an athletic person who practiced Tai Chi often, in addition to numerous other forms of physical activity. His health issue necessitated a major surgery and a long recovery. He came through it all with an incredible degree of grace, and recovered beautifully. That was when I realized that the goal with practicing Tai Chi and Qigong isn't to achieve infallible health and protect yourself forever from the ravages of time, but to put yourself in a much better place so that if and when something comes up, you have the resources - psychological, physical, and spiritual - to deal with it.

The May 2009 issue of Harvard Women's Health Watch offers a handy summary of many of health issues that scientific studies have demonstrated improve when people practice Tai Chi, including arthritis, low bone density, cardiovascular issues, and Parkinson's.

"A Comprehensive Review of Health Benefits of Qigong and Tai Chi," published by the American Journal of Health Promotion in 2010, summarized the results from 77 studies and concluded that Tai Chi and Qigong offer high degrees of support for the immune system and cardiopulmonary health. These practices improved study participants' quality of life and healing outcomes, improved bone density, and aided in fall prevention.

These results are, of course, significant from a Western medical perspective. Those who practice Tai Chi and Qigong regularly are more likely to tell you about how they help you to simply enjoy your life more fully, and maintain the strength and flexibility to persevere through ups and downs.

This post is part of a series called What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You. Look for more parts in the coming weeks, or click "What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You" at the bottom of this post. 

I offer weekly classes and occasional workshops. For my class schedule and information about fees, click here. For upcoming workshops, click here. 

Stand Up! Stand Up for Yourself! Use Tai Chi to Learn How

This is one especially for those who want to learn Tai Chi. Although Qigong shares some of the same benefits I mention here, it is not a martial art.

Here's the deal: most percent of people who take a martial arts class are never going to get into a fight on the street. You are not going to head out of your first Tai Chi class and go pick a fight in a bar to test your skills. What is going to happen is that slowly over time, you'll become more confident in your dealings with your physical environment. Whenever I'm faced with a challenging task (most recently it was breaking very thick sticks for kindling at the cottage without an axe or chainsaw), I think about the most efficient way to do it using Tai Chi or Qigong technique. This is a huge boost and it means that I can do what I need to do without risk of physical injury. It is much harder for life to break you down when you know you can handle your day to day tasks.

What learning Tai Chi as a martial art does mean is that you will receive training in how to use the moves for what they are: strikes, blocks, and kicks. You'll learn how to apply your strength effectively, and do it all in a very relaxed manner. You'll learn that you don't have to use all your muscular strength in order to deal with someone else's force. You'll learn how to spar, and you'll practice dealing with an opponent's energy.

(I should say that this is how I teach, and in my experience the more a teacher knows about the martial art aspect of Tai Chi, the more satisfying the class will be for the participants, but there are lots of Tai Chi classes out there for those who want to emphasize gentle movement without learning about the martial arts aspect.)

Here's the other deal. You probably do fight others in real life, frequently. Think about that person in your life who does not share your point of view and blocks you at every turn. Or that fussy co-worker you have to deal with. The petulant neighbour / customer / client / whoever who always makes your life difficult. Those people always seem to know exactly where your buttons are. Learning Tai Chi can help you to become much more aware of how those people get under your skin, and how to stop letting them do that. I've written more about Tai Chi and the emotions here if you want to learn more. Go here to learn more about Tai Chi for self-defense.

This post is part of a series called What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You. Look for more parts in the coming weeks, or click "What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You" at the bottom of this post. 

I offer weekly classes and occasional workshops. For my class schedule and information about fees, click here. For upcoming workshops, click here. 

Use Tai Chi and Qigong to Tweak Your Genes

This is exciting stuff. Recent studies are showing that stress impacts the body by altering your genes. Specifically, this study by Gunther Meinlschmidt and his team at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) showed that a single stressful incident suppressed the expression of the gene that makes oxytocin receptors. Oxytocin is the "trust neurotransmitter" - so it seems that stressful events can alter your ability to trust on a molecular level? Yikes, right?

The good news about studies like this is that it is becoming more and more evident that we are not slaves to our "genetic makeup." Having the gene for some disease or other does not mean that gene will ever express itself. Epigenetics - the study of the impact of environmental factors on the ways our genes express themselves - will, I think, continue to prove that we are not just products of what we carry inside our cells, but the kinds of experiences we put ourselves through.

Every time you get yourself to a Tai Chi or Qigong class, you teach your body that it has regular access to a beautiful, peaceful, invigorating experience. This goes beyond "reducing stress," although we do that too. This is about maximizing your wellbeing on a cellular level, and giving yourself the best shot possible at turning on the genes that keep you feeling good and turning off the genes that may express as disease.

This post is part of a series called What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You. Look for more parts in the coming weeks, or click "What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You" at the bottom of this post. 

I offer weekly classes and occasional workshops. For my class schedule and information about fees, click here. For upcoming workshops, click here. 

Let Go of Your Baggage Using Tai Chi and Qigong

I'll tell you a secret. Okay, it's not really a secret. Here it is: stressful events, negative emotional patterning, and all kinds of things you think you've forgotten but still jump out at you at key moments (usually when you're upset / stressed) are not just part of your psychological makeup. They are carried in the body. I'm talking about habitual tensions - like that jaw-grinding habit you haven't ever managed to stop or that old backache that turns up at the least convenient moments - that make your life subtly miserable.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, negative experience is said to be stored as cold chi, which blocks the body's natural processes and prevents the body/mind from working properly. Eventually, these blocks can manifest as disease. It's a totally different model of health and disease than we have in the West, but it has the advantage of integrating mind and body and the energy systems that permeate and integrate the two together.

Here's the best part: when you use Tai Chi and Qigong for healing, you can leave all that on the practice room floor at the end of your lesson.  Each time you practice Tai Chi and Qigong, you let go of a little bit more. It's a gradual process of clearing that our exercises are designed to accomplish. Little by little, you allow room for transformation.

This post is part of a series called What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You. Look for more parts in the coming weeks, or click "What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You" at the bottom of this post. 

I offer weekly classes and occasional workshops. For my class schedule and information about fees, click here. For upcoming workshops, click here. 

Learn to Use Your Mind Effectively with Tai Chi and Qigong

The mind is capable of many amazing things: puzzling through challenges and information, guiding decision making, and helping us to get what we want. However, the mind is a Jekyll and Hyde kind of a deal. When you're not paying tons of attention, it will start misbehaving: grinding over a problem that is beyond your control. Replaying troublesome conversations. Thinking over everything and anything that could go wrong. The mind is fully capable of making your life miserable.

The spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle has this to say about the mind: "The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly - you usually don't use it at all. It uses you." Eastern philosophy calls this "monkey mind" - mind out of control, jumping all over the place, wrecking your fun time, kicking sand in your face.

When you practice Tai Chi and Qigong, you are only giving the mind one thing to do at a time, which encourages it to slow down, to just pay attention to that one thing. One thing at a time. Doesn't that sound nice? Over time, you develop the habit of slowing down. It's a whole new way to enjoy life, and to turn your mind into an instrument that serves you, rather than an abusive taskmaster who wants to comb through all your old misgivings. It's a better way to live.


This post is part of a series called What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You. Look for more parts in the coming weeks, or click "What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You" at the bottom of this post. 

I offer weekly classes and occasional workshops. For my class schedule and information about fees, click here. For upcoming workshops, click here. 

Tai Chi and Qigong Can Help You Feel Amazing

Warmth, tingling, a sense of aliveness, a palpable, bouncy, uplifting and at the same time grounding sensation are all par for the course when you practice Tai Chi and Qigong. One of my advanced students likes to joke that she would never have spent so much money on pot in high school if she had known she could get high for free doing Tai Chi and Qigong. There is nothing like discovering that you can take an hour class, go in feeling whatever - run down, uptight, stale, unstretched - and come out feeling absolutely excellent every single time. The best news is that once you've taken a few classes, you can practice on your own and have that great, lively, mellow feeling any time you want it or need it.

Once you get into it and start to work with correct technique, Tai Chi and Qigong can also be amazing workouts. You will build up your legs, work them in ways you never have before, stretch things you didn't know could stretch. People have this idea that Tai Chi and Qigong are gentle and that means they aren't effective as exercise. When you're ready, let me show you otherwise. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

This post is part of a series called What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You. Look for more parts in the coming weeks, or click "What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You" at the bottom of this post. 

I offer weekly classes and occasional workshops. For my class schedule and information about fees, click here. For upcoming workshops, click here. 

How Tai Chi and Qigong Can Help You Build a Better Relationship with Your Body

Modern living tends to disconnect us from our bodies. Most of us work at jobs that require us to sit for long periods of time, process information, and otherwise behave like floating minds barely anchored to the physical realm.

To make things worse, there is subtle messaging always being thrown at us that the body's main job is to break down over time and eventually betray us by producing disease. Alternatively, we are encouraged to treat it like a machine that is either behaving well (producing the right shape / result / numbers on a scale, on medical tests) or not, in which case it needs more discipline.

Here's an alternative: consider that your body is your vehicle for interacting with this beautiful world. Like the most patient of workhorses, it carries you where you want to go and allows you to do, make, or create anything you desire. Its needs are really few: good nutrition, plenty of water, rest, and exercise.

While any form of exercise will help your body, Tai Chi and Qigong are unique in their ability to increase body awareness so you can begin to remember how to enjoy having a body again.

As you perform the gentle range of motion exercises, you bring a focused awareness to each body part. Tai Chi and Qigong movements are initiated from the feet: that initial push against the floor is channeled up through the legs, through the low spine, and throughout the entire body to produce the wide variety of movements. This is how you can move without tension: one little push does all the work for you, so it becomes the job of each muscle group to simply relax and allow the movement to take place.

Moving in this way, you begin to understand how each body part is connected to the next, and how all move through your focused awareness, initiated by one small action. If a body part for whatever reason holds tension or falls out of line, you'll feel it, and you'll learn how to bring it back into alignment.

By learning how to attend to each body part, you'll have a greater degree of awareness when something doesn't feel quite right. This can alert you to the potential for injury, cue you to change how you are moving, or give you a heads up when you've got a cold coming on. You'll also get to experience a much more integrated sense of yourself, an awareness of what feels good and when you just need to get up and stretch.

Doesn't that sound great?

This post is part of a series called What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You. Look for more parts in the coming weeks, or click "What Tai Chi and Qigong Can Do for You" at the bottom of this post. 

I offer weekly classes and occasional workshops. For my class schedule and information about fees, click here. For upcoming workshops, click here.