Imagine waking up each morning full of energy and vitality yet also feeling calm and relaxed about the day to come. It sounds like a miracle yet this state of abundant health and wellbeing should be our birthright. In our natural state we would face each day with joy, peace, and a deep connection with our bodies.
(Jane Alexander)
Qigong and tai chi training is renowned for improving stamina and endurance. Students can concentrate longer and sustain prolonged physical activity without fatigue.
They gain the ability to withstand hardship and cope with difficulty.
Try resting at certain points throughout the day and then continuing...
Without momentum to carry you forward, you may realise just how tired you really are.
The brief rest centres you and lets you feel that you're fatigued and need to stop.
The more economical movement/body use favoured in tai chi reduces fatigue. It lessens the possibility of over-commitment and redundant movement.
It makes the tai chi more accessible to people of all ages and fitness levels.
Tai chi advocates moderation; not taxing or tiring the body. Rather than train for a lengthy period of time, aim to practice little & often. 20-30 minute increments, with rest breaks in-between is ideal.
Instead of pushing your body hard and putting it under duress, just do a little exercise. Resting will keep your concentration sharp and offset fatigue.
There is a tendency to lock the psoas muscle in a defensive posture and fatigue the muscle by keeping it in a chronic contracted state. This limits the movement of the leg, encouraging the use of the lumbar spine and stops a person from performing effectively.
Being in the tai chi posture utilizes gravity to one's advantage.
(Liz Koch)
One drawback of exertive training is that it can dull your awareness. Yes, you feel strong and seem able to handle the training... but you've inadvertently lost your sensitivity.
Over time, the nervous system of most adults becomes faulty, and it provides the brain with inaccurate information.
Instead of applying only the necessary amount of strength to complete a given activity, it is normal and comfortable to use an incredible excess.
This fatigues the muscles, blunts the nervous system and makes you clumsy.
Forcing a local muscle (or muscle group) to do all the work is simply not as efficient as sharing the workload across the entire body.
Localised muscle usage leads to fatigue, strain and the risk of joint injury. Long after the task is over, the muscles are sore, tired and potentially damaged. The muscles compensate by shortening.
Often people are running on empty. They fail to take adequate rest. Many of the exercise methods they adopt lead to even greater fatigue.
Stimulants, sugar, caffeine and fatty food enable the individual to carry on when in fact the real solution to fatigue is of course energy conservation and rest.
Lifestyle issues are often caused by a failure to see what is right in front of you. The truth can be unpalatable or inconvenient.
For example: people who suffer from fatigue usually begin by over-committing their time, being unrealistic about their capabilities, failing to rest, being poorly organised, unwilling to say No, not working on themselves...
What do people do to off-set fatigue? Do they cut back their commitments, do less, rest, engage in milder forms of exercise? Not usually.
They drink caffeine drinks, eat sugary food and moan about being tired.
Modern life saps energy. People are often exhausted, unhappy, frustrated...
They are frequently emotionally, physically and psychologically unbalanced.
Feeling drained is commonplace.
Set aside talk about relaxation, qi, softness and other concerns... Your body is flesh and bone. It is moved by muscles.
In order to be strong, agile, flexible and adaptive in combat - you need to strengthen your body.
Being in condition entails:
• Increasing your strength
• Improving your ability to last (endurance)
• Overcoming fatigue
• Being fitter
• Being more efficient in your body use
• Being more capable
• Overcoming stress
According to the book The Blue Zones it is important to think of exercise in terms of what you can reasonably do long-term.
The ideal form of exercise is moderate enough that you can do it for the rest of your life. It needs to be joint-friendly, provide a gentle workout and be sustainable.
This sounds rather like tai chi, doesn't it?
There are 3 areas of fitness:
Cardio
Strength
Flexibility
In order to exercise the body properly, you need to gain aptitude in all 3 areas. Many people can lift heavy weights but they are not flexible/breathing hard after mild cardio.
Dr Michael Greger (author of How Not To Die) recommends 90 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise every day.
The three doctors who wrote The Okinawa Program maintain that tai chi - with its ancient origins and incredible health benefits - is the ideal form of exercise for modern people.
In ancient China, Taoist sages searched for different ways to prolong life, maintain youth, fitness and vitality. They developed a wide variety of anti-aging exercises.
Tai chi is a product of this quest for rejuvenation.
Not many people in the UK live to be 100 years old but in Asia it is far more common. How come? Asia sees aging differently to the UK.
The aim of tai chi is to teach and encourage optimal body use. A body that is capable of spontaneous movement in any direction; comfortably, safely, with the necessary support and stability.
By sitting, standing and moving in a natural, healthy way you will feel energised, relaxed, comfortable and agile. We encourage students to be fresh and open, supple and curious...
Over time, the nervous system of most adults has become faulty, and it provides the brain with inaccurate information.
Instead of applying only the necessary amount of strength, it is normal and comfortable to use an incredible excess. This fatigues the muscles, blunts the nervous system and makes you clumsy.
Correct alignment of the body will enable you to use your body with less effort and greater strength. Counteracting the force of gravity is a key consideration.
The vertebrae and joints must be free to move in a fluid, smooth manner.
Students usually get a crude sense of tai chi quite quickly but never get very good at it. The reason why is simple... There are 3 considerations:
1. The speed/pace determined by your level of excitement.
2. The actual speed that your nervous system can currently handle.
3. How present you really are.
The discrepancy between the 3 is the issue. Your mind/emotions wants to go fast but your nervous system cannot cope. And maybe you're not fully aware because you're thinking about other things
Tai chi requires the body to perform technically complicated movements in an extremely controlled fashion. Clumsiness must be transcended.
You must become very aware of your own body and make every single movement deliberate and careful. This is not to be confused with prissiness.
It is one of the reasons why some of the training is performed slowly.
Many beginners train tai chi for ages and never learn to become soft. Why? They pay attention to the end result and not the means.
This is foolish, since the means produces the end. If we do not learn to listen to our body, then it is easy to become injured. Strains, stress and discomfort are ignored.
As you exert pressure upon an object, your body experiences resistance and there is biofeedback which tells you how much strength is necessary.
Most adults in the Western world have a faulty nervous system and the information it provides is inaccurate.
Instead of applying only the necessary amount of strength, it is normal and comfortable to use an incredible excess. This fatigues the muscles, blunts the nervous system and makes you clumsy.
It is extremely common for people to confuse 'strength' with clumsiness. When someone exerts their muscles and imposes an excess of strength, they are often considered to be strong.
Yet, how is this a reflection of strength? Surely a skilled use of strength requires the appropriate degree of strength relative to the needs of the activity?
Every martial arts class should be be teaching a level of knowledge that goes way beyond the superficial learning of patterns and routines.
If your instructor is not providing technical information, what are they teaching you? All students benefit from a more thorough understanding of their given art. Age or experience is not a factor.
An over-50's qigong & tai chi group should be addressing as much technical knowledge as is relevant and appropriate.
A martial class should train every aspect of the syllabus in a manner that assures comprehensive understanding and skill.
Stress is a condition of anxiety caused by the inability to cope with a situation. A person feels to be under pressure and they become upset.
They are often encouraged to see themselves as being a failure when the pressure becomes too much.
Stress is so commonplace that we treat it as normal. Yet, stress is very harmful to your health and can lead to illness, psychological problems and premature aging.
Taoism and Zen help with composure. They put life and your relationship with the world into perspective.
Instead of accepting conventions, orthodoxy and received wisdom, these disciplines encourage you to find out for yourself. The approach is grounded in the tangible, in the substantial.
Everyone who trains our syllabus is changed by the experience. Their lives are more peaceful and they are less prone to depression, anxiety, anger and aggression.
They learn not to exert unnecessary strength and to yield in the face of force.
Taijiquan was designed to be practiced daily. This is why the exercises are so mild: no strain, no pushing. Gentle effort. Little and often is the mantra.
Taijiquan students should be aiming to build strength carefully and progressively.Imagine if you were told that 5 minutes training would earn you £100... Would you do the exercises? Of course you would.
Yet, people are told that daily home practice = good health, fitness and better quality of life... and they dismiss it. Curious?
This illustration shows how many people value an obvious monetary reward but are unwilling to appreciate the value of health, vitality and fitness.
If a person was overweight and sought to diet, would one healthy meal per week enable them to lose weight?
It seems unlikely. There must be a daily commitment. Taijiquan is no different to this...
You need a good tai chi teacher to adjust your posture physically, to help calibrate your alignment, to point out where you are holding tensions, and to note any musculoskeletal imbalances. The nonverbal physical adjustments you get from your teacher help you develop a level of self-awareness not accessible through solo practice alone.
(Harvard Medical School’s Harvard Health Publication, May 2009)
Our syllabus contains mild cardio work. Nothing strenuous but just enough to get the heart beating faster.
If you are tired and out of breath after a few minutes of exercise, then you are simply not fit enough. You must improve your fitness considerably if you want good circulation.
This means training qigong and form regularly.
Breathing adds oxygen to your blood stream and this helps to keep you alive and healthy. Pay attention to the act of breathing and the quality of the air.
Rather than force the breath, feel it instead. Once you can feel the air going into your body, leave the muscles alone and let your body breathe by itself.
The less you tamper with the breath, the better.
You can undertake the hardship of the walk without undue difficulty. You need to use just as much energy to complete it.
Yet, your body has grown stronger. More efficient. Compared to somebody who does not undertake daily training you will be far more capable of sustained exercise.
Consider this example:
You decide that you are unfit and you commit to a 3 mile daily walk every morning. On the first day when you complete the walk, you are out of breath and your limbs are shaky.
After two weeks you can finish the walk without losing your breath and you feel pleasantly energised.
Eventually the walk feels too easy and you look to try a more challenging route. What has changed?
When people say 'full contact' they are typically referring to no-holds-barred combat, unrestrained, without rules... But what do they really mean by full contact? That they hit one another?
That they use full-power?