Finding your flow

An interesting episode of Life Cycle on Radio Scotland today, encouraging people to do less... Available to listen again here for a month.

T'ai Chi and health benefits

It is taking me ages to get these up on here, apologies. This is everything I have for now, I will add more as they arrive. Please send links to anything else you feel is relevant. I have also added links about haptic sense decline, the legacy of frictionless surfaces and screen time meaning people can't use real objects finely any more...

Thankyou to Michael, Janet R and Hamid especially for the links.

After reading, go practice!

General synopsis of Taichi health benefits So good I will quote it here directly.

'OBJECTIVE:

To summarize the evidence on the health benefits of tai chi.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION:

A literature review was conducted on the benefits of tai chi for 25 specific conditions, as well as for general health and fitness, to update a 2014 review of systematic reviews. Systematic reviews and recent clinical trials were assessed and organized into 5 different groups: evidence of benefit as excellent, good, fair, or preliminary, or evidence of no direct benefit.

MAIN MESSAGE:

During the past 45 years more than 500 trials and 120 systematic reviews have been published on the health benefits of tai chi. Systematic reviews of tai chi for specific conditions indicate excellent evidence of benefit for preventing falls, osteoarthritis, Parkinson disease, rehabilitation for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and improving cognitive capacity in older adults. There is good evidence of benefit for depression, cardiac and stroke rehabilitation, and dementia. There is fair evidence of benefit for improving quality of life for cancer patients, fibromyalgia, hypertension, and osteoporosis. Current evidence indicates no direct benefit for diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, or chronic heart failure. Systematic reviews of general health and fitness benefits show excellent evidence of benefit for improving balance and aerobic capacity in those with poor fitness. There is good evidence for increased strength in the lower limbs. There is fair evidence for increased well-being and improved sleep. There were no studies that found tai chi worsened a condition. A recent systematic review on the safety of tai chi found adverse events were typically minor and primarily musculoskeletal; no intervention-related serious adverse events have been reported.

CONCLUSION:

There is abundant evidence on the health and fitness effects of tai chi. Based on this, physicians can now offer evidence-based recommendations to their patients, noting that tai chi is still an area of active research, and patients should continue to receive medical follow-up for any clinical conditions.

Copyright© the College of Family Physicians of Canada.'

Postural stability in patients with Parkinson's

Fall reductions in older people

Taichi benefits and cognitive control in older people.

Benefits of QiGong and Taichi (scroll to bottom for comprehensive list of outcomes)

If so inclined, Janet Rickard suggest you can search published reports here for related papers.

Students of surgery lack basic dexterity for lack of touch.
I also have the report from the 'Thinking Hands' symposium about this from St Martins in 2014, for those who are interested, get in touch.

In appreciation of difficulty

I am writing this before the first session of The T'ai Chi Centre's 13th Annual autumn workshop. For 13 years I have been inviting Mark to Scotland to teach my students and we spend our time doing increasingly difficult, challenging, or sometimes even initially baffling things together. Each year at some point we will say or hear: 'I can't do this!', or, 'It's difficult!'. And we all smile because we have all been there. Then we remember to look back and recall when Talu seemed an impossible task, or when moving our bodies in figures-of-eight made our brains turn to porridge and our limbs seem like cooked spaghetti. Over the weekend I hope to write a little about the practice of difficult things and about how it enriches our lives, and makes us anti-fragile, keeps us in good health, mentally and physically, and enables us to look beyond the small self and our inner toddler's protestations.

I would also like to write about the haptic desert of contemporary life, the frictionless surfaces and voice activated and wave-on world in which we are sleep walking. I do not think the sense of touch is given anywhere near as much import as is necessary and have an inkling this is impoverishing our learning environments, our living spaces, even our metaphorical choices and language due to the physical ruts our bodies are being funnelled towards. ('Haptic' is a useful word and is to touch what 'visual' is to sight, or 'aural' is to sound).

Swipe left, swipe right, click here for more pics, only a three minute read. Tl;dr...

Unlikely on this blog. So, today I will mostly be putting down intrusive thoughts, for the 21st year, whilst attempting to stay connected, attentive, relaxed and in motion or stillness, as appropriate, with 15 or so other wonderful people who have also chosen to come to Fetternear Hall and do this strange, difficult paradoxical thing. I shall write more later.

Sword exercise to train awareness to the end of the sword.

Staff practice, adjusting the supporting hand with pressure from the partner.

Thanks

Thanks to all those who have sent or who are sending me links about T'ai Chi and health. I will be able to collate everything in the second week of October, when my workload lightens somewhat. Thanks again.

T'ai Chi and health benefits

If anyone reading this, including students or instructors in the schools, have come across good scientific studies, articles or publications about the proven benefits of T'ai Chi to health, please send me links or drop me a line. I had begun to collate things years ago, but it fell by the wayside as the practice took up my interest, and I avoided online research, not needing any extra justifications for my study, as the benefits in my own life and in those of my colleagues and students were plain to see. The Chinese have put particular time into evidence-based studies on the preventative effect of regular T'ai Chi on falls in older people. There is also strong evidence for the improvement of mental clarity, mood and memory, improved balance, prevention of loss of bone density and the lowering of high blood pressure. Any of these or other topics are of interest to me, so please feel free to get in touch via my website, or by email. In the near future I hope to bring some of our T'ai Chi to a much under-resourced area. More of this when I have more to tell.

Thanks to those who have already emailed, I will put great links here next week.

Tara Approach Workshop at Findhorn

Click on flyer to enlarge

Tara Approach workshop in Aberdeen

Click on flyer to enlarge

rub

Thanks to Hamid for one of my birthday pressies, this lovely Badger muscle rub. It isn't made from badgers, thank goodness, but is an organic gorgeous-smelling balm along the lines of Tiger Balm, but less full-on with the heat, more a korma than a vindaloo. I have been using it on my several current knee bruises (we are doing lots of big roll-back and split in class, taking the opponent to the ground, and someone has to be the one who kisses the floor...) It's really good stuff.

International Women's Day

International Women's Day, March 8th each year. Sadly, everytime I look their official website is down, over subscribed? Denial-of-service attack? Who knows. I'd like to know more, as I am not at all clued-up on this annual celebration / day of action.

This particular woman is having a Tui Na with Kev Grey as a late birthday present.

Light help

After reading a moving and insightful article by the widow of recently deceased Dr David Servan-Schreiber, I borrowed his 'Healing Without Freud or Prozac' from the library.

It is a good book with some very helpful ideas and approaches to physical and mental wellness, which refreshingly are described as completely interdependent. Although I do not share Dr Servan-Schreiber's adulation of Dr Antonio Damasio (readers of The Master and His Emissary will know why...), the compassionate and thorough nature of this book seems to me worth the library visit. Having tried a few of the suggestions, I would already recommend 'artificial dawn', or a 'light alarm clock', for those of you who, like me, jump at the sound of an alarm, which jolts you straight from dreaming to waking. I bought one of these, pictured below, and already feel much better immediately on waking. Also, unsure of how to use a certain feature, I called the Lumie helpline number, (a normal land line rather than an over-priced premium one), and within 2 rings it was picked up by a friendly, knowledgeable woman who gave me clear instructions that answered my query. I can't remember the last time I called a helpline that was answered by a human, rather than a machine.

EMDR, Non-Violent Communication, acupuncture and other non drug-based approaches that are well regarded but under-studied in Western medicine are also covered in the book. For those of us meeting and connecting with folks who are often in difficult or turbulent times in their lives, this book could offer some really useful suggestions to pass on.

Tai Chi prevents elderly falls say geriatrics societies

Thanks to Sandy for passing on this article
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12170441

Late last night I emailed our Swedish T'ai Chi family as sadly there had been bombs in Stockholm. Folks are well but there is a general feeling of sadness that it has come to this.

One friend said he sends love this way when he does Salutations when his hand reaches out to the West... He and a few folks have been asking how the arthritis has been, and I now feel confidant enough to share that I finally feel a lot better. I have had 10 days symptom-free and am experiencing the pleasures of fully inhabiting my body again right to the finger tips. It's been such an education being ill, and it has already helped in instructing  people who are dealing with their own injuries, but I do hope this respite continues. It is lovely to be able to properly demonstrate the Five Elements Chi Kung and to be useful to Mark in showing applications. I am still laying-off the 'centrifugal' type warm-ups as they can swell my hands a little, but other than that, things are vastly improved. I have had help from excellent treatments from Kevin Grey (see earlier posts) and plan to go at least once more to encourage this wellness to last through the Winter. It seems that with viruses, there is an element of unpredictability in recovery, so I am trying not to overdo it at all at the moment. Thanks again to all friends who have been so generous in their care, and students who have been patient with my shortcomings.