I Ching Personare

[Apolonio Hicks]

TheTai Chi and Chi Kung Forum for Health (UK) provides training for taiji and qigong teachers who wish to teach people who are living in or spending their days in residential homes, hospitals, hostels, prisons, day centres and shelters. The students may have visual impairment, aural impairment, physical difficulties, learning difficulties, mental health problems or be elderly and/or frail, seeking shelter, seeking refuge or for some other reason not able to join a local taiji class. Of course, I can tell only the part of the story which happened to me and there may be many other parallel stories all over Europe.

In the early 1980s, I read Lawrence Galantes book Tai Chi, the Supreme Ultimate, in which he mentions having taught an experimental taiji group at Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital in New York City. Since I had grown up nearby and had once visited that hospital myself, this information held a resonance for me. I too thought taijiquan could be beneficial to people with mental illness.

(Wudang). Later, in 1980 I came to Manchester and set up my own school, Village Hall Tai Chi. I also began looking into ways of working in hospitals. As far as I knew, taiji classes in hospitals had not yet become available, though I had heard of a few yoga classes.

Having had my first class funded by an arts organization and then by a department of education meant that I was not at all connected to health or medical organisations. My classes were seen more as recreational rather than therapeutic. This was a blessing in disguise for two reasons. The first was that no one bothered me. The second was that I then had time to experiment without being observed or having to produce results. Eventually, I realised that teaching on the psychiatric ward was not ideal since the patients were really very ill and were also given high levels of medication. They were not in positions to make positive decisions for themselves and I thought that taijiquan would be more effective further along the recovery road.

Through their goodwill and my desperation (could we really do taijiquan sitting down?)we developed many of the mainconcepts which continued to inform all my subsequent teaching. The first task was to find out what is unique about taijiquan and be sure to include it. I needed to be aware of taiji principles as stated in the taiji classics and attempt to keep the essence of these principles central to the movement work.

13. Use the idea of responding and connecting through games, touch and visual shapes. Use chiffon scarves, foam rubber balls. Pass things, touch things, sing songs, recite poems, put the stories of our lives together.

Meanwhile, one of my students in a mainstream class was a social worker in a mental health day centre, and he helped me set up a class in the centre. This was a better setting since the clients (no longer patients) were self-motivated and taking less medication. They were able to make their own choices for their own health programme. We interviewed those interested in attending and Wayne, the social worker, supported the new students by helping them remember when the class met and during the week he helped them by leading some practice. For the first time, a model for good practice was developing.

Over the years I learned a lot about setting up groups and about connecting with the full-time staff who worked within these institutions. When I had a better idea of what I myself was doing, I welcomed consultations with staff and sharing observations about the progress of students/ patients. Eventually taijiquan itself gained wider general recognition as a health practice and I did not have to defend it. But I think back fondly on those early classes when every week it felt like diving off a cliff. Mopping up urine, feeding people, adding tap dance steps to the sitting down warm-ups, including music, seeing an elderly woman sitting in her wheel-chair punching the air with her clenched fists, laughing. Yes, very fondly.

We offer two levels of training, Basic and Plus. The first, Basic, consists of three weekends. Two weekends are workshops and one is the annual May Gathering at which there is the Annual General Meeting of the organisation, invited speakers and presentations from members. This Gathering is open to health and care workers, taijiquan and qigong people or anyone else interested in the Forum. The two workshop weekends are designed to help the experienced player (five years training in taijiquan and/or qigong are usually necessary before attending our courses) move from their classical training to being able to follow principles and adapt movements as necessary.

Instead of focussing solely on taijiquan and principles of movement, they begin to focus on the various client groups that they may teach in the future. Once a person completes these three weekends, they can be listed on the Forum website Tutor Register as a Basic member.

This yin/yang dichotomy is particularly familiar to taiji players. Our current dialogue between taijiquan and the medical profession is similar to other dialogues we have dealt with in the past. As we know, yin/yang comes in many forms.

So, is taijiquan good for you? Is taijiquan good for your balance? If you practise taijiquan as an elderly person, are you less likely to fall? The answer is, yes. In fact, almost 50 per cent less likely. What we have always assumed to be true has now been proved clinically by evidence based western research methods and we in the taijiquan world are likely to be dramatically affected by these findings, along with findings in other areas of health.

In the past few years, various medical research studies have been conducted to determine the positive effects of taijiquan on health. The most widely publicised is a study on falls prevention in the elderly by Dr. Steven Wolf, Professor, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia and also Director of a programme in restorative neurology. The study showed that older people taking part in taiji programmes could reduce their risk of falling by up to 47.5 percent.

The fact that we as taijiquan and qigong players know these things to be true because we feel them in our bodies is not enough. If we are going to make significant contributions to health policy and practice through the conventional channels, we are more effective if the evidence behind our work is recorded in the appropriate language. In this case, the language of evidence based medical research. I feel this is the greatest cur rent challenge for taijiquan throughout Europe. By integrating our classes into mainstream healthcare services, we have the possibility of reaching thousands of people who are likely to benefit. Our job, as dedicated taiji players, is to provide the highest quality of training for our teachers so they are able to meet this challenge with confidence, skill and credibility.

Linda Chase Broda began tai chi training, originally in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1974 with Sandy Cuthbert (Yang Style) and subsequently with Ian Cameron (Wu Style). In 1980 she moved to Manchester where she set up the Village Hall Tai Chi and started teaching classes in the psychiatric ward of the local Withington Hospital. These initial sessions, and her love of networking, led Linda to create the Tai Chi Health Forum to train tai chi teachers to work with those who had Special Needs.

Taoism (also known as Daoism) is a Chinese philosophy attributed to Lao Tzu (c. 500 BCE) which developed from the folk religion of the people primarily in the rural areas of China and became the official religion of the country under the Tang Dynasty. Taoism is therefore both a philosophy and a religion.

It emphasizes doing what is natural and "going with the flow" in accordance with the Tao (or Dao), a cosmic force which flows through all things and binds and releases them. The philosophy grew from an observance of the natural world, and the religion developed out of a belief in cosmic balance maintained and regulated by the Tao. The original belief may or may not have included practices such as ancestor and spirit worship but both of these principles are observed by many Taoists today and have been for centuries.

Taoism exerted a great influence during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) and the emperor Xuanzong (reigned 712-756 CE) decreed it a state religion, mandating that people keep Taoist writings in their home. It fell out of favor as the Tang Dynasty declined and was replaced by Confucianism and Buddhism but the religion is still practiced throughout China and other countries today.

The historian Sima Qian (145-86 BCE) tells the story of Lao-Tzu, a curator at the Royal Library in the state of Chu, who was a natural philosopher. Lao-Tzu believed in the harmony of all things and that people could live easily together if they only considered each other's feelings once in a while and recognized that their self-interest was not always in the interest of others. Lao-Tzu grew impatient with people and with the corruption he saw in government, which caused the people so much pain and misery. He was so frustrated by his inability to change people's behavior that he decided to go into exile.

As he was leaving China through the western pass, the gatekeeper Yin Hsi stopped him because he recognized him as a philosopher. Yin Hsi asked Lao-Tzu to write a book for him before he left civilization forever and Lao-Tzu agreed. He sat down on a rock beside the gatekeeper and wrote the Tao-Te-Ching (The Book of the Way). He stopped writing when he felt he was finished, handed the book to Yin Hsi, and walked through the western pass to vanish into the mist beyond. Sima Qian does not continue the story after this but, presumably (if the story is true) Yin Hsi would have then had the Tao-Te-Ching copied and distributed.

The Tao-Te-Ching is not a 'scripture' in any way. It is a book of poetry presenting the simple way of following the Tao and living life at peace with one's self, others, and the world of changes. A typical verse advises, "Yield and overcome/Empty and become full/Bend and become straight" to direct a reader to a simpler way of living. Instead of fighting against life and others, one can yield to circumstances and let the things which are not really important go. Instead of insisting one is right all the time, one can empty one's self of that kind of pride and be open to learning from other people. Instead of clinging to old belief patterns and hanging onto the past, one can bend to new ideas and new ways of living.

3a8082e126