Spring Chi: Go Out and Get Some

The path of the Qigong and Tai Chi practitioner is a beautiful way to become more aware of the energies that surround you. It starts with feeling your own chi: at the end of a workout you notice a little tingle in the hands, warmth and a sense of increased circulation (or pouring sweat, if you've amped up the intensity a little). A feeling of being more open, loose, and relaxed. All that good stuff.

I've written before about how Tai Chi and Qigong can change your awareness of the way you interact with other people. All interpersonal interactions (even those taking place at a distance) involve an energetic exchange. We are all connected, and that becomes way more clear when you develop your sensitivities to chi.

People are not always at their best, however. You're more likely to learn about the impact of other people's chi on you through your habitually nasty coworker than through those who are balanced and even-tempered.

Fortunately, there is one realm where you can generally speaking guarantee a positive energy exchange that has untold benefits for you, and that is the natural world.

Here in Southern Ontario, as in much of North America, it has been a nasty winter, and if you still a haven't pulled yourself out of winter hibernation, that's totally understandable. A lot of people around here like to say we "don't get a spring" here. It is true that the weather tends to turn from cool-ish (10-15 degrees Celsius) to warm (20+) rather quickly, creating a spring that looks pretty grey for a long time but then flips suddenly into all the plants growing all at once and all the leaves busting out. Trees and plants here don't kid around: when it is go time, they all burst forth as fast as they can.

However, the energetic conditions underlying the process of rebirth and growth have been building since the winter solstice - the moment when the sun begins the long slow climb toward summer. By March / April, the signs of spring are absolutely everywhere if you know where to look.

The birds are usually the first indicator that something is up. We look for robins, but even the sparrows that winter here will start being a lot more vocal. In late March / early April, the ground plants start greening up, especially in protected wooded areas. Mosses often come first, then garlic mustard (I know it's an invasive, but it's a tasty one), low-lying vines and of course crocuses, tulips, hepatica, and others. Buds start coming on - the red maple across the street from our house has pushed out its intense showy red buds in the last couple of days, and the Manitoba maple in our yard has a squirrel in it right now, snacking on its buds.

Spring is here, now, no need to wait for it.

It's great to take note of the signs of spring that you can see and enjoy intellectually, but if you do any kind of energy work, including Tai Chi and Qigong, the thing to do is get out there and experience what this chi feels like. Too often, we like to stick to our familiar practice room - we go to class, work out, feel better, and then don't do anything with it. The fact is, the Taoist arts are a path to complete awareness of the beautiful world around us. When we only attend to interactions with other people, and our whole experience of the outside world is the office or the grocery store, the insides of buildings and the insides of our own homes, we miss the fact that this world of ours is in many ways still a paradise, despite humanity's best efforts to destroy it.

One of the best ways to engage with the full range of what this practice has to offer is to get out there. Get yourself to a conservation area, park, or, if that seems like too much, into your own yard. Take off your shoes and walk through the mud a little. Pick a dry patch and lie down on the ground. Lay your spine out and feel the earth beneath you. Even the most public busy park will have a quiet unused corner where this is possible. Open yourself to the world around you and soak it in. Take note of how you feel before you head out, and see how spending time outdoors changes that.

Even if you don't do Tai Chi or Qigong, you can still do this, of course. If interacting with nature is your entire practice, it will take you far. If you are a Tai Chi or Qigong practitioner, remember that yours is a shamanic tradition. It's our birthright - everyone's birthright - to enjoy and embrace the natural energies that constantly flow all around us. If you practice Tai Chi or Qigong and don't take advantage of what the world of nature has to offer, it's not exaggerating to say that you're missing the whole point of your practice.

This is something that has been missed, I think, in a lot of Tai Chi classes. It isn't something that gets taught much because it isn't something your teacher can really show you. (I would argue this is true for most of what you can learn through Tai Chi and Qigong - classes are great, but no one's going to do your practice for you. That's a post for another time.) You have to go out and play with it, knowing that your Tai Chi and Qigong practice has already worked on you to heighten your awareness. When you practice in class, you're building a potential within yourself to see and feel differently, to experience more, to taste the sweetness this life has to offer. It's up to you to go out and experience it.

Your Daily Spa Moment, Brought to You by Transdermal Magnesium

Maybe you're feeling a little bit bunched up by the demands of the day. Maybe you hit your last workout a little too hard, and your muscles are letting you know. Or you've just hit that part of the evening where you'd like to start the long, slow, gorgeous slide into bed that is usually fraught with potholes and bumps. 

Ideally, you would call upon your personal masseuse or masseur to come and help you out. And then you would enter your private sauna where a trained monkey would feed you grapes while placing cucumber slices on your eyes and pouring fresh herb-infused water on the hot rocks from time to time. 

Okay I don't have anything for you that awesome (note to self: arrange for trained monkey immediately), but I do have an update on my previous post on the magic of magnesium. 

Transdermal magnesium, when I first read about it, sounded a little ho-hum. Oh, you spray it on your skin? And it's another way to get more magnesium (one of the most significant missing links in almost everyone's diet) into your body? Okay great fine great. I am currently working on offering my body a gram of magnesium daily in order to remineralize my system, so pursuing more than one method of taking it seemed wise. I ordered some pre-made magnesium "oil" (so called because it's oily in consistency - there's no actual oil in it) and decided to give it a go.

I am not one to back down when trying something new, so I decided to really give it the old college try and see what transdermal magnesium could do for me. I picked a time when I wanted to spend 20 or 30 minutes chilling out. To avoid TMI I'll just say I thoroughly covered my skin with magnesium oil, grabbed a book, and sat down to wait for whatever was going to happen. 

At first, nothing happened but a light stinging, especially on my hands and forearms. (This is salt water, basically, and our recent acquisition of two kittens means we always have scratches.) After five minutes, all my muscles began to relax. Basically, everything started to uncoil. The awesome thing is that this effect kept going for the next fifteen or twenty minutes. 

Although some people claim they just put on lotion following transdermal magnesium application, I have found that it's a little bit itchy as it dries. If you put a lot on one area, there's a certain sticky tackiness that occurs. Because magnesium can pull toxins and heavy metals out of your cells, my thinking is that it's best to rinse it off. Just a quick rinse in the shower and you're good. I feel that the magnesium makes my skin a lot cleaner once it's rinsed off - squeaky clean, in fact.

There is no danger in putting on magnesium oil and then throwing on your clothes. It can leave a salt residue on the clothes, but this does not harm them and will rinse out when you wash the clothes. Typically I wait until after a workout, when I would normally grab a shower anyway. I delay the shower 20 or 30 minutes, use the magnesium oil, throw my workout clothes back on, and do whatever - a little writing or editing, dinner prep, what have you - and then shower. For a truly amazing experience, I've even followed the magnesium oil with a soak in an epsom salt bath. Yum.

I've had good luck with Ancient Minerals Magnesium Oil (no affiliation - it's a good product). There are also blog posts out there (like this one) that will tell you how to make your own magnesium oil from magnesium chloride flakes and water. (Note this is not epsom salt. There are mixed thoughts on this but some researchers claim that the magnesium sulfate in epsom salts is not as well retained in the body as the magnesium chloride. There is nothing wrong with an epsom salt bath, but it's ideal to use magnesium chloride if you're serious about getting magnesium into your system.)

If you want to take things to the next level (I do, and I did), you can also make an absolutely incredible body butter that is infused with magnesium. I used Wellness Mama's recipe. I have never made lotion before, but I made this, and it worked beautifully the second time I tried it. (The first time I got cocky and subbed out an ingredient and rushed the emulsion stage.) I use magnesium oil for a daily spa moment, but I rub the body butter on my feet last thing at night to help create a gorgeous, deep, relaxed sleep. 

Qigong and Tai Chi Technique: Really Relaxing for Real

One of the things - maybe the thing - that separates Qigong, Tai Chi, and the other internal martial arts from other forms of exercise is the way you do it. Qigong and Tai Chi are supposed to be done in a complete state of mental and physical relaxation.

If you've played Tai Chi or practised Qigong for any length of time at all, you know that this is actually a big challenge. Too often, we want to hit our workout like a hammer to let out all the tension we've allowed to build up since the last one. We groan and strain and clench and grasp, all the while waiting for our bodies to relax. An hour of practicing in tension passes (all while we tell ourselves we're plenty relaxed, thank you very much!). Maybe more goes by if we've been training for a while and we're nice and strong. At last we're too tired to strain and clench and grasp any more, and finally, we relax.

We can do better.

In this post I want to talk about a couple of concrete standards by which you can measure your own relaxation, and how I personally came to work with them to improve my Tai Chi and Qigong.

The standards come from Cheng Man-ch'ing's T'ai-Chi, a wonderful book with good practical advice for the practitioner. I pricked up my attention when I read this advice on how to tell if you're relaxed:

I would say a good start is made on relaxation when the student is able to go through a round [form / set] without letting outside influences into his mind. 

Okay, fair enough! And wow! Anyone who has done Tai Chi long enough for it to go into muscle memory knows how easy it is to allow your mind to drift to anything and everything except what you are doing. There are times when I swear my mind saves the most bizarre and ridiculous things especially for my practice time. (It does, and if you're doing Tai Chi effectively, yours probably will too at some point, and there are reasons for this, but that's a post for another time.) The more I thought about this definition, however, the more brilliant I realized it was: if a focused mind is relaxed, then a wandering mind is a cause of tension. 

While anyone familiar with meditation will tell you that focus and relaxation go hand in hand, I guess I've always thought that these two things needed to be balanced, rather than thinking of them as the same thing. As a creative person (I'm a fiction writer as well as a Tai Chi player), I find a certain enjoyment in allowing my mind to drift, but this is a totally different feeling than the hectic ricochet that the mind usually gets up to if you let it do what it wants. 

When I first started to really (for real) work with the concept of focus, I told myself that the workout was a time when I didn't have to think about anything else. It is actually a treat to let everything else go. This worked wonders, but it didn't quite get me where I wanted to go, especially considering the rest of Cheng Man-ch'ing's passage on relaxation: 

But this [not letting outside influences into the mind while performing a set] is only the first step. The next step is to do the exercises in such a manner that you are nearly exhausted at the conclusion. When your shoulders feel heavy you will know you are approaching real relaxation. This is a result of "swimming in air."

Okay so. We know that none of this exhaustion effect is going to be achieved by tension, right? Tai Chi is NOT isometric, neither is Qigong. You're supposed to be harmonizing with universal life energy here, not fighting yourself. So how do you get to this feeling?

The answer is to go into your workout already relaxed. No, put down that beer. What I'm talking about is getting in touch with the part of yourself that is already soft, always calm. Even if that part is only a tiny sub-molecular dot, you can access it.

(There are all kinds of Tai Chi manuals and advice about sinking the chi into the lower dantian and directing the breath. If you try to do any of that stuff too soon, you will get into falsely manipulating what should be a natural process. The best thing you can do is to get in touch with your inner cool and stay in touch with it as you move.)

Here's a simple exercise for contacting your inner cool. You can do this whether or not you are planning to perform Tai Chi or Qigong afterward. It's very beneficial to get in touch with your inner cool and operate from there. You'll have a much better time of things, and so will everyone around you!

Direct your mind deep within your core, seeking an area of calm. If you wish (recommended for Qigong and Tai Chi practitioners), focus awareness on the lower dantian, three finger widths below the navel and two finger widths inside the body. Take a deep breath. As you let it go, see, feel and imagine yourself dropping into that inner space. Ask yourself, "How am I doing?" You may find a word, feeling, or image comes up. Take note of it and continue.

Take a second breath. As you let it go, see, feel and imagine dropping down another layer, deeper into that inner spaciousness. Ask again, "How am I doing?" You may find a word, feeling, or image comes up. Take note of it and continue.

Take a third breath. As you let it go, see, feel and imagine dropping down a third layer, still deeper into the calm centre within. Ask, "How am I doing?" and take note of the word, feeling, or image that might come up.

Don't expect that the words, feelings, or images will all be positive. As you drop down you are dropping through the crusty layers of tension that under normal circumstances make it difficult for you to feel relaxed and calm. It is typical for the first word or two to be kind of negative or unpleasant, with only the third word becoming positive. Just accept whatever imagery, feelings, or concepts come through. This is information about yourself and your current state of being. The only guarantee you have is that it will change, so if you don't like it, just know that it will be different next time.

I've found that taking the time to "drop in" before working out sets me up to bring my best, most relaxed self into my Qigong or Tai Chi practice. The first time I did this, I had an incredible sitting meditation session afterward that confirmed for me how much more profound my practice was. I took that practice session very slowly, only working on a few movements of Ba Duan Jin in order to keep the sense of calm, and yet, I felt happily wiped out at the end. My students have reported that a round of Qigong and a Tai Chi set, which under normal circumstances could be considered a good warmup, are utterly exhausting when approached from this sense of relaxation. Chi spreads much more readily throughout the body as you work if you begin by getting in touch with your centre in this way.

Magnesium: Are You Getting Enough?

I don't often post about specific things you should or shouldn't do to protect your health (beyond doing Tai Chi and Qigong), since I believe that taking charge of your own wellbeing is one of the most powerful things you can do for yourself. All the information you could possibly need to help yourself is out there, but lately I've become more aware that it is sometimes hard to sort through the vast field of research. I also think it's more and more important to add my voice to the chorus of those encouraging people to take charge of their own health and healing.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical doctor. I'm writing this based on my personal experience and on the writings and research of people much more knowledgeable about the science of nutrition, for what it's worth. However I am an excellent critical thinker and on every level this information makes so much sense to me.

Lately I've been sharing this information about Carolyn Dean, an MD and natural health researcher who has done a lot of work on the benefits of supplementing Magnesium. This simple mineral is important to somewhere between 300 and 800 body processes (depending on whose research you're reading). Chances are, you're deficient in it. (Yes you.) A 2009 American Family Physician article claims that 75% of Americans don't meet the recommended dietary allowance for magnesium. 

I've found it is often typical of mainstream medical articles that they will push the idea that you can and are getting enough nutrients from food if you eat a reasonable diet. Here's the thing, though: none of us are really eating a reasonable diet. Unless you know for a fact that the farmer who grows your produce is actively working on remineralizing the soil, your produce is not going to contain sufficient magnesium for you. The people who are working on remineralizing soil, like the folks at the SEER Centre in Scotland, can give you tips to work with your own garden or farm to remineralize the soil and give the plants a chance to take up those minerals, but otherwise, we are stuck with sub-par produce that is insufficient in this essential mineral.

According to Dr. Dean we are lucky to get 200mg of magnesium a day from dietary sources. What happens if you don't get enough? 

According to the NIH, magnesium deficiency signs are loss of appetite, nausea, weakness, numbness, tingling, heart irregularities, personality changes, seizures, and a few other nasty things. This all sounds very scary and if you go to that article I've linked at NIH it will sound like this level of deficiency is downright impossible if you eat food.

However let me ask you if you live with muscle cramps and contractions? That morning charlie horse is part and parcel of magnesium deficiency. If you're in magnesium inadequacy - just not quite getting enough - chances are you won't expire but you are probably still experiencing symptoms including muscle cramps and tics. 

Alternative healers tend to be much more inclusive in their lists of magnesium insufficiency signs. Dr. Andrew Weil includes the following in his list of magnesium deficiency symptoms:

Physical and mental fatigue

Persistent under-eye twitch

Tension in the upper back, shoulders and neck

Headaches

Pre-menstrual fluid retention and/or breast tenderness

Low energy

Fatigue

Weakness

Confusion

Nervousness

Anxiousness

Irritability

Seizures (and tantrums)

Poor digestion

PMS and hormonal imbalances

Inability to sleep

Muscle tension, spasm and cramps

Calcification of organs

Weakening of the bones

Abnormal heart rhythm

If that seems like a crazy catch-all list, it is. Magnesium is responsible for so many body functions that it can affect all these different systems. A longer list that is worth reading (skip it if you want to get to the stuff about what to do) is included in Dr. Weil's article, quoted at length from a piece by Dr. Sidney Baker. I'm including the whole thing here because it is may help you rethink some of those little things you live with that you have come to think of as normal but which are actually a sign that you might need more magnesium. I was personally blown away by this list:

“Magnesium deficiency can affect virtually every organ system of the body. With regard to skeletal muscle, one may experience twitches, cramps, muscle tension, muscle soreness, including back aches, neck pain, tension headaches and jaw joint (or TMJ) dysfunction. Also, one may experience chest tightness or a peculiar sensation that he can’t take a deep breath. Sometimes a person may sigh a lot.” 

“Symptoms involving impaired contraction of smooth muscles include constipation; urinary spasms; menstrual cramps; difficulty swallowing or a lump in the throat-especially provoked by eating sugar; photophobia, especially difficulty adjusting to oncoming bright headlights in the absence of eye disease; and loud noise sensitivity from stapedius muscle tension in the ear.” 

“Continuing with the symptoms of magnesium deficiency, the central nervous system is markedly affected. Symptoms include insomnia, anxiety, hyperactivity and restlessness with constant movement, panic attacks, agoraphobia, and premenstrual irritability. Magnesium deficiency symptoms involving the peripheral nervous system include numbness, tingling, and other abnormal sensations, such as zips, zaps and vibratory sensations.” 

“Symptoms or signs of the cardiovascular system include palpitations, heart arrhythmias, and angina due to spasms of the coronary arteries, high blood pressure and mitral valve prolapse. Be aware that not all of the symptoms need to be present to presume magnesium deficiency; but, many of them often occur together. For example, people with mitral valve prolapse frequently have palpitations, anxiety, panic attacks and premenstrual symptoms. People with magnesium deficiency often seem to be “uptight.” Other general symptoms include a salt craving, both carbohydrate craving and carbohydrate intolerance, especially of chocolate, and breast tenderness.”

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Consider supplementing with magnesium. Here's a summary of what I've learned so far from various sources.

FURTHER DISCLAIMER: Don't rely on my information here. Look it up for yourself or ask a naturopath to help you. Here is an article on contraindications - reasons you might not want to take magnesium. Here is another (second last paragraph on the main article).

The body naturally excretes magnesium if it can't use it / doesn't need it. This is good news because it means that unless you have certain very specific medical conditions, it is virtually impossible to take too much unless you are shooting it. The body excretes magnesium through the urinary tract and more noticeably from the bowels. If you get all excited about taking magnesium and take a ton of it all at once, you will probably experience diarrhea. At that point you are pooping out more than you're probably taking in, so don't go past bowel tolerance.

Natural Calm is a product that has helped a lot of people. It's magnesium citrate that you dissolve in water. You can sip it a little bit at a time, which will help you avoid dumping a ton of magnesium into your system all at once and therefore help you avoid hitting bowel tolerance. (You'll know when your bowel movements become loose. You want to back off on the dosage when they do.) The best advice I read was to start with about 200mg/day, hold at that level for 3-4 days, then up the dosage by 100mg, keep taking that for 3-4 days, and so on, until your bowels tell you that you've hit the right level.

For some people, bowel tolerance happens long before symptoms go away, so in that case you might look into transdermal magnesium (magnesium baths with epsom salts or magnesium flakes; magnesium oil).

There are also magnesium supplements that claim to have a lesser impact on the bowels. You can read more about those at Carolyn Dean's website.

MY EXPERIENCE
I exercise a lot, so muscle soreness and tenderness is a familiar friend to me, and something I accept as a sign that I got a really good workout in the day before.

More disturbing are the muscle tics and pings that would sometimes come up. I am familiar with the eye tic that comes with stress. (No big deal, I'm stressed, eye is ticking, it will go away, right? It always has before.)

The idea I try to work with isn't okay or acceptable health, though: it's optimal health. I'm not talking about absolute perfection, just the best health I can access at any given time, including where it's worth putting in effort to include something new into the routine.

Background: I've become aware in the past several months that I am not dealing as well with my stress as usual. I had a few back-to-back stressful incidents that each were okay on their own, but all put together seemed to be wearing me down. My usual tricks and tools - giving myself Reiki, making sure I get my meditation in, paying extra attention to my sleep and relaxation - were not working as well as usual.

Basically, feeling "uptight" didn't begin to cover it.

I began taking magnesium on a Tuesday, starting with 200mg that I sipped over the course of about 4 hours. Within twelve hours, the black cloud that had been following me around totally lifted. In very short order I went from feeling like I was in a profound and uncomfortable fog to a state of mental clarity and a rational perspective.

I am continuing to supplement with extra magnesium (I was already taking about 300mg in my multivitamin, but clearly it was not enough). I'm very happy with my results so far. Muscle tics and pings are down, my mood is up, and my energy levels are way up. I can't wait to see what it will do for me in the long term.

SOURCES
A new edition of Magnesium Miracle is coming out on March 7, 2014, so if you want to read a whole book about it, I'd look into that.

A video talk with Carolyn Dean and a nice summary of the magnesium issue is here at Dr. Mercola's website.

An interview with Carolyn Dean at Radio 314 is what got me interested in all this.

Tai Chi or Qigong?

...which should you take?

In an ideal world, both! The two practices complement each other very well. However, there are some key differences between them. If you don't want to dive headlong into two different disciplines, this article is a guide to help you pick the practice that's right for you.

First, a little bit of context.

Qigong is thousands of years old. Tai Chi is merely hundreds of years old. The way I was taught, Tai Chi is a type of Qigong and grew out of a Qigong way of moving and focusing the mind. It uses the same style of movement (soft on the inside and outside, relying on the body's natural structural integrity), and requires a similar meditative focus. Tai Chi and Qigong - the way I practice and teach them, anyway - both have similar benefits. They'll help strengthen and stretch your entire body, calm and focus your mind, and teach you how to work with chi or universal life energy (for the Star Wars fans among you, "the Force"). Both practices leave you with a feeling of being relaxed and invigorated.

That having been said, Tai Chi is a martial art, whereas Qigong is not. The movements of Tai Chi are blocks, strikes and kicks. It has a more dynamic way of moving the body. Qigong movements are directed toward stretching the body in strategic ways to stimulate the internal organs and encourage all body systems to work in harmony. Tai Chi movements accomplish that same goal, while teaching you how to fight. (It takes a long time to learn how to make the slow movements of Tai Chi into anything martially effective.)

What does that mean for you?

Physical Considerations
Qigong exercises are typically performed standing on both feet. They are more easily adapted to a chair if you must remain seated. If you have balance problems or difficulty standing, or are working through an injury or chronic condition, especially to the lower body, Qigong is a better starting place than Tai Chi.

Tai Chi moves across the room in a more dynamic fashion. To perform it safely, you need to be able to stand on one leg for at least a brief period of time. At the same time, Tai Chi develops leg strength, flexibility, and a more dynamic way of moving very quickly. Some people find the gentle, limited movements of Qigong to be unchallenging in the beginning. If you want to gain greater proficiency with your balance and leg strength, and are looking for a more challenging physical workout, choose Tai Chi over Qigong to start with.

Mental / Emotional Considerations
Both Tai Chi and Qigong require that you bring your mental focus into the present. Both require you to learn a new style of movement that will highlight any physical, mental, or emotional tensions you hold within you, and allow you to learn to release these tensions.

The movements of Qigong are more repetitive and simpler to learn in the beginning. Perfecting Qigong, and learning the more subtle aspects of each movement, is extremely difficult and takes a lot of practice. However, it is a relatively quick process to pick up a basic understanding of a Qigong routine. If you are looking to pick up a new discipline relatively quickly, or if you tend to get frustrated easily, Qigong is a better choice in the beginning than Tai Chi. If you're looking for stress relief and you tend to find it more relaxing to work with your mental focus, Qigong is a better choice.

The Tai Chi learning curve is steep in the beginning. You are asking your body to perform complex actions that flow one to the next, and it will feel like a long time before your muscle memory kicks in to help you feel your way through the movements. Learning the set is a big challenge, although not impossible if you're able to be patient. It takes six months to a year to learn the set that I teach from start to finish. Once you have the set under your belt, you'll have an incredibly effective tool you can use to help yourself any time you feel that you need a stretch, a workout, or to release stale tensions. If you are interested in learning a skill that few have the focus or patience to acquire, and you want to sink into a learning experience that is very deep from day one, then Tai Chi is a good choice. If you tend to relieve stress through movement (going to the gym, going for a run or a walk to clear your mind), Tai Chi is a better choice than Qigong.

Meditation 
Both Tai Chi and Qigong are forms of moving meditation. Generally speaking when you're first learning, Tai Chi and Qigong both take your mind away from your daily concerns because they require your whole focus in order to just do the class. Eventually, once you get used to the movements, your mind will start to drift again. That's when you'll start bringing your mental focus back to the movements as you perform them. That's when the real meditation begins.

The Qigong exercises are more repetitive and easier to learn, so you'll hit the point where you can do them on autopilot a little faster, which means you'll need to start challenging your mental focus sooner. If you're interested in learning standing and sitting meditation forms, I teach these more frequently in the context of Qigong than Tai Chi. Choose Qigong if you have a stronger immediate interest in meditation than in exercise.

Tai Chi in the beginning is hard physical and mental work. Chances are you'll feel so great after a Tai Chi workout that you won't care about your problems by the time you're done! However, achieving a true meditation effect in Tai Chi class takes a little longer. It's a great long-term investment because all the work that goes into doing a Tai Chi set profoundly prepares your body to be able to handle meditation, but you probably won't be doing Tai Chi as meditation right away. Choose Tai Chi if you are interested in investing in a practice that will prepare you for better, more profound meditation in the long term.

Time Commitment 
The hard fact is, what you'll get out of Qigong and Tai Chi is directly proportional to the amount of time you spend practicing them. Before you choose either of them, you'll want to take a look at your schedule and see whether you can make time to learn and to do a little practicing.

You can join Qigong classes any time. The curriculum does change periodically as I try to introduce new material for those who have been there a while, but you can dive in and learn the current curriculum whenever you choose. Qigong is easier to pick up after a long break, or to learn a little bit at a time. Choose Qigong if you are not sure you can commit to a regular class schedule, but you still want to learn to work with chi.

Because the Tai Chi set is a long and somewhat intricate series of movements, I recommend that you plan to attend at least one class per week, and miss as few classes as possible, while you're learning. It is fine to skip a class or two here and there, but if you look at the ten-week schedule for the Beginner's course and know that you won't be able to make more than three classes, it would probably be better for you to choose Qigong. I don't personally put any limits on people who wish to learn Tai Chi but may have to miss classes for one reason or another. You are always welcome at class. However, it's probably best to work within your own tolerance for catching up or working through unfamiliar material. If you have a fairly reliable schedule and want to enjoy the benefits of a regular workout, or if you're comfortable with catching up quickly on material you haven't seen yet, then Tai Chi is a good choice.

Too Long: Didn't Read
Choose Qigong if:
You have balance problems or difficulty standing, or are working through an injury or chronic condition, especially to the lower body.

You are looking to pick up a new discipline relatively quickly, or you tend to get frustrated easily. 

You're looking for stress relief and you tend to find it more relaxing to work with your mental focus.

You have a stronger immediate interest in meditation than in exercise.

You are not sure you can commit to a regular class schedule, but you still want to learn to work with chi.

Choose Tai Chi if:
You want to gain greater proficiency with your balance and leg strength, and are looking for a more challenging physical workout.

You are interested in learning a skill that few have the focus or patience to acquire, and you want to sink into a learning experience that is very deep from day one. 

You tend to relieve stress through movement (going to the gym, going for a run or a walk to clear your mind).

You are interested in investing in a practice that will prepare you for better, more profound meditation in the long term.

You have a fairly reliable schedule and want to enjoy the benefits of a regular workout, or if you're comfortable with catching up quickly on material you haven't seen yet.

On Tai Chi and Being the Best

I often encounter people who tell me that tai chi is the best martial art (I often encounter people who say, "Tai chi is a martial art?!?!" but that's a post for another time). It was a common topic of discussion where I trained. People just love the idea that you can spend time training in this apparently slow, gentle form and suddenly transform into a martial arts beast if you're confronted.

On one level, I will say yes, I think tai chi is the best. Obviously I do, as does anyone who spends hours every week practicing it. If I thought otherwise, I would be off learning karate or kung fu. No doy. (Although I do not practice solely for self defense...any martial artist will tell you that is not the only or even the primary benefit of martial arts training.)

In reality, whether tai chi is "the best martial art" is really a weird kind of statement if you think about it. Martial arts are not what does the fighting should you sign up for a competition or be unlucky enough to get into a confrontation on the street. People do the fighting, and people come in all formats: well trained, with tons of experience; untrained, with tons of experience; well trained, with no real fighting experience; belligerent windbags who won't throw a punch; silent but deadly types who will literally stab you in the back. Not to mention the vast majority who just won't bother getting into any type of fight.

What I can say for sure is that tai chi is an amazing way to learn how to deal with the energy of others, including, when you're ready, physical confrontation. If you want to see what it looks like when a guy with a lot of tai chi training demonstrates his skills against a mixed martial artist, go straight to the video below, featuring a tai chi demo and commentary by Ian Sinclair of Sinclair Martial Arts in Orillia.

If you want to know what really makes someone the best, though, listen to the audio commentary Ian Sinclair has laid over the video. You might want to especially prick up your ears at 3 minutes. Here I'll help you with a little transcription:

In order to master martial arts, you need to master yourself. This is not just an idealistic principle. This is a very practical thing. Every time there is a thought there is an emotion. Every time there is an emotion there is a physical response. So people who master martial arts have to work through their own stuff. There is no room for fear, hatred, anger, ego or anything on the floor.... The better the martial arts school - the nicer the people. The higher the level of skill - the nicer the personalities of the instructors.    

You get this, right? Not: the higher the level of skill, the faster they'll wipe the floor with you. Not: the higher the level of skill, the more they'll boast about their level of skill. Not: the higher the level of skill, the less they'll have the time of day for you when you walk in the door to check out the class. Niceness is a good metric because anyone who has learned well should have learned mastery over themselves and therefore should be able to help you feel accepted and comfortable from your first day. That really is the best.

Simple Acupressure Routines

From time to time in class we've talked about identifying acupressure points and what the various points do. If you've been around for a while, you've no doubt learned about the Bubbling Spring (aka Yongquan or Kidney 1).

We've also talked in detail about the Great Eliminator (Large Intestine 4, Hoku), which is the point we're trying to stimulate when we use the Tiger Mouth hand position and when we point in Draw the Bow.

It's easy enough to learn to find acupressure points. Once you know that feeling of tenderness when you press on one, and you know that they tend to hang out in natural folds or indentations in the structure of the body, you're well on your way. From there, it's a matter of knowing how to stimulate points, and which points to stimulate depending on the problem you're trying to resolve.

There are a number of great resources online to help you. I recommend this article at Eclectic Energies to learn two basic techniques for working on points: pressing and reducing. Most people are familiar with pressing and holding as an acupressure technique, but you can also press and perform small counterclockwise circles. This circular massage clears stagnant energies from the point and its associated channel and organ. Pressing and holding moves new energies into the point. (The article I've linked to there includes a little image of someone working on a foot. If you click on it, it plays a small video of how to reduce a point.)

If you're interested in learning more about acupressure points and how to combine them into little routines to help with common ailments, then AcupressureOnline.org is a great place. The site features short guides to acupressure routines that can help you with numerous different types of headache, nervous system issues, menstrual and menopausal issues, and body aches. When you click on a symptom, it opens a little chart that guides you, with illustrations, on which points to stimulate and how long you should work with each point. Personally, I often use the reducing technique as well as the pressing technique (from Eclectic Energies, above) when I work through an acupressure routine. It's the only thing I would recommend adding here. I've used Acupressure Online for headache and digestive issues with great results.

The site has links to mobile versions of the charts that you can download to your phone or other device. The complete acupressure guide is also available as a small paperback book if you prefer a physical book for when you're offline or away from your toys.

It's another tool for your toolkit.