Stand like a mountain – flow like a river…this is the goal of tai chi chuan practice.

On Saturday August 21st I will teach a workshop to introduce you to the art of tai chi chuan.

This workshop hopes to give beginners and improvers an overview of the practice of tai chi chuan. We will learn simple meditative movements, drink tea and walk like ninjas. Together we will review the ten fundamental principles of any style of Tai Chi practice and spend some time putting them into practice in a light-hearted atmosphere with a focus on attention, balance and compassion – the ABC’s of Tai Chi Chuan.

Attention or focus is sometimes difficult to maintain in our society of instant everything and distractions galore. By mentally focusing on your body as you move slowly and purposefully, it helps to bring our mind and body together – just as in meditation the focus is on the breath, in tai chi it is on the flowing movement while maintaining balance and relaxation – not really an easy thing to do, but in learning to move in this manner we become more balanced and relaxed.

Balance is one of the main side effects of Tai Chi Chuan practice that has been scientifically demonstrated. Other beneficial effects that have been measured are improvements in mental health, immunity, and blood pressure.

Despite its gentle nature, tai chi also has cardiovascular benefits! And bonus (or downside if you like getting the latest workout gear etc) it does not require any special equipment or
clothing.

It is ideal for the over 40′s who, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine, should relinquish the hard styles of exercise for more gentle ones that stretch and tone rather than add to the wear and tear already beginning to accumulate in the spine and other joints.

The beauty of tai chi practice is that it is more than exercise, it is an art that can be as expressive as you want it to be or as inward and hidden as you want to make it.

Watching some fellow tai chi players at a conference a few years ago, I was struck by how unfinished their movements seemed. Their style of practice was much more internal than mine. They did not move far from their center of gravity/balance. I favour the BBC version with the big flowing movements as seen on TV, but to each his own.

As long as the fundamental principles are respected, your tai chi can be very individual. When I asked Master Yang Jun about the differences between styles of tai chi and what he thought of the divisions he responded “There is only one tai chi” and went on to talk about the ten principles of practice. So Daoists, Chen, Sun, or whatever style you practice, it is all Tai chi. So let’s learn our ABC’s

In March, I began teaching a one-hour Tai Chi Chuan class to eight children ages 10-12 at a local primary school. I enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to share my passion for Tai Chi with a group of special needs children once a week for six weeks. Little did I realize what a tough job this would be.

In the first class, I began with the story of the tai chi master who had such great physical sensitivity and dexterity that he could prevent a fly from taking off from his hand as he could move his hand with such precision that the fly could not get enough resistance to push off from his hand. That captivated some of them. But very soon I found that in a class with ADHD children, teaching tai chi as I had with adults was not going to work and perhaps it would be of limited value to them.

They were enthusiastic, but the martial arts kicks that went with their enthusiasm were not helping them to access the meditative and calm state of mind and body usually associated with tai chi. Then I urged them to be secret ninjas, quiet and cool which did seem to help them to become more slow moving. Brush knee and twist became ninja walking. We had a giggle and worked on the smooth weight transfer from one leg to another that is a fundamental aspect of tai chi practice.

So I had to figure out how to modify the techniques from my tai chi chuan training and mindfulness- based stress reduction practices for children. I found one clinical project that had taught tai chi chuan to teenagers, but to not children under 12. Then I stumbled upon a website on mindfulness meditation for children by Susan Kaiser Greenland who has now written a book called “The Mindful Child” which outlines some of the practices she developed in her very successful “Inner Child” program in LA. Her approach to mindfulness encompasses all the aspects of tai chi chuan that are most important to me – the new ABC’s as she calls them – Attention, Balance and Compassion.

This class became a very small scale clinical project (I was working on my dissertation at the time and was frustrated with the lack of tai chi research) using a modified psychometric tool called “The Serenity Scale’ sent to me by a Qigong researcher in the USA, Linda Larkey. This psychometric measurement tool has been used to analyse well-being and spirituality. It was designed to address the need for measurement tools in holistic treatments which have a spiritual element.

This instrument has been used in mindfulness-based stress reduction research. The special needs teacher modified and administered the questionnaire. The children were asked ten questions with responses a scale of one to five. She also measured how long each child could balance on one leg in seconds before the series of classes started.

I used the ‘Inner Child’ program exercises at the beginning and end of class. For example, we ended class by placing a beanie baby on the stomach of each child as they lay on the floor and asked them to rock the beanie baby to sleep by breathing gently using abdominal breathing. I also used a singing bowl when we talked about how to focus. As the classes progressed, I relied on the mindfulness-based exercises more and we did secret ninja training abandoning most references to tai chi altogether!

Recently the special needs teacher brought me the results of the questionnaire and the timed one-leg balances. She had given one point for each positive change on the questionnaire scale and for each second improvement in balance times. All had positive scores, and two of the children this class had +50 or more in their answers to the questionnaire and their balance times! All but one had improved their balance times significantly. We are not really statisticians, so will have to have a look at how to measure the changes in research terms, but for us lay researchers it seemed to have had a positive effect.

Some of the parents noticed changes in their children and school have asked me to continue my classes in the fall, so it seems to be more helpful than I had first thought.

So if anyone has experience with teaching tai chi to children, then please do get in touch! Any tips would be most welcome. And for all you mindfulness teachers, I am on the ning network, so will welcome your feedback especially.

Hooray!! After trying to convince clients and nearly everyone I know that practicing tai chi is the best thing for their ______ or ________and _________ -or in other words anything that is aggravating them physically or mentally. (Okay maybe not the best or only thing, but certainly a very helpful and relaxing thing….)

I am teaching a Saturday taster workshop to anyone interested in experiencing tai chi chuan and learning how this marriage of meditation and movement can profoundly effect your health and well-being.

Tai chi is often taught by martial artists who focus on the defensive side…like this utube clip that I find hilarious.

And while I have utmost respect, really, for the energetic importance of knowing why the move is done in a certain way in martial terms, many people just want to learn the meditative art that is tai chi without the macho martial arts vibe going on. I often had to grit my teeth due to the macho environment that surrounded my first few years of learning tai chi. Inappropriate jokes and machismo all around.

So after teaching a class at Burton Waters since last September, I have decided to organize a workshop that would be accessible to everyone – not just BW gym members.

Yay, and I found an awesome space, not a dusty old hall, but a large dance studio with parking run by Libby Battaglia who teaches a mean Zumba and other assorted dance classes.

So on Saturday August 21st at 10am come to 8 Dixon Way to join in the first secret ninja training session, we are martial artists really, but we WILL NOT let anyone know, okay? And there will be tea and it will be light-hearted.

It is an awful question. As if what we do, is what we are. Some people get very confused about that. I can never answer that question without feeling a little bit insecure and defensive. Because as the report cards at our house inevitably say, “clever, but could DO better.”

As I integrate acupuncture into my practice, I am wondering what to tell potential clients about my work and treatments.

And the question keeps popping up.

What do I do? Hmm… I massage patients with aromatherapy oils. I use finger pressure and occasionally needles. Elbows are a common tool, as well as my beautiful lapiz lazuli knot eraser…

I sometimes use suction cups or even fire cupping. I know – Weird eh? And the suction can leave you with little red circles on your skin, so if you are going on the red carpet warn me and I won’t use them. (Gwyneth Paltrow had fading cupping marks on her back on the red carpet a few years back.)

Sometimes prospective patients ask what type of massage I do, or ask for a specific type of massage therapy. (One recent request was for organ massage, her internet doctor in the US advised her to ask for this?!)

(SIGH….)

…. there are a million types of massage/bodywork and their matching courses for therapists to learn the flavour of the month newest ancient technique. I have a file full of certificates for therapeutic techniques from courses ranging in duration from a weekend to years. Now I have just completed a BSc in acupuncture at the University of Lincoln.

AND I still hardly know where to start at times.

Thankfully no one expects miracles.

Except me.

The human being is a mystery. I am a novice. I am living in the question of how to be. Is being contagious?

Maybe I can help you. Maybe not. I have trained extensively hoping that I might be able to. But the training is not IT. The techniques are not IT.

But what is IT? That I DO?

With so many labels – acupuncture, massage, aromatherapy, shiatsu, tuina, reflexology – all in the same treatment, it is hard to define. Whatever, IT is never just one therapy.

Am I a massage therapist?

People get that. That is IT. Basically. Shiatsu smiatsu. Tuina mena. Sportsy portsy. Bowen smoen. Labels smables.

Am I a “jack of all trades master of none” because I cannot define myself by one ‘type’ of therapy?

I am a massage therapist. Mainly because clients understand that label. It is enough.

Or is it?

Am I gonna have to sign up for another one of those courses….again?

…….dammit.

And what I might call this hybrid of treatment modalities? If you could encompass it all in a word or technique, what would it be?

Actually that could be fun… how about acumassposhiaromatherapist?

I am just being, well, me. And I’m not even sure what that means.

Sometimes of life’s best lessons only really sink in years or months after you get them. I have only recently started to actually learn what matters to me. And what matters to me, I share like a toddler standing on two feet and smiling broadly at the sheer joy of it.

So…

I was given a great lesson in September.

It was an object lesson in gentleness. A master class in not disturbing stuff. The how-to book of letting things be. A Zen retreat in Just being okay with things as they are.

In September went on a qigong sword retreat. During one of the many tea breaks, I was standing near the qigong master with another new student. He called our attention to the tea pot he was preparing to pour water into.

An inch of loose green tea floated in a bit of water at the bottom of the glass teapot. He poured more hot water in from a height of about six inches. Very slowly. In a steady stream.

The tea leaves did not move, they just quivered slightly. As he poured, he quietly said this is how we need to be in life. Not disturbing the tea leaves, everything in life needs to be treated this way. With great care.

I remembered it.

Only last week did I try to do this with my glass tea pot. I thought it would NOT be so difficult to do.

So I tried again, more slowly. Nope, still absolutely and (for me) maddeningly impossible…the tea leaves swirled around in the tsunami of my pouring.

Ten tea pots later (or so, I’ve stopped counting), I am laughing at myself wondering just how many years before I can pour tea gently like Zhixing.

Dangerous Waters

I know that as a therapist, I can often blunder in, upset the leaves, and cloud the water. Meaning well all the while, but causing upset nonetheless. Clients usually have come in a stirred up state in the first place, with pain or discomfort of some description.

I pride myself on my strength as a massage therapist. Deep tissue work is a favorite in my toolkit. Strong insistent pressure releases those knots. But increasingly I am going back to some of the pressing and shaking Shiatsu movements that are much more gentle. I am getting a bit more careful about wading into someone’s shoulder and really TRYING TOO HARD TO DO TOO MUCH, TOO FAST. I think that might be my theme song’s chorus, if I had a theme song…

As it is in my work, so it is in my life. With great faith in hard work and determined intention, I feel I can do absolutely anything. And I go charging ahead, somewhat oblivious of lots of little things that get stirred up in my wake.

Is there more gentle way forward?

The tea leaves still churn about when I pour.

Thank you, Zhixing for showing me how to pour tea.

Nearly twenty years ago, when I first arrived in the UK, it was rare not to be offered a cuppa tea whenever you visited with someone. I did not drink tea. Never had.

At first when offered a cup of tea, I would try to explain that tea drinking was forbidden for faithful members of my church. “What is wrong with tea?” They would exclaim in disbelief.

I earnestly tried to explain the Mormon wisdom of abstaining from tea, coffee and alcohol as the thought bubble of ‘complete nutter’ loomed above their astonished faces. I soon learned to stop trying to explain and just keep my mouth shut – not an easy feat for me…

Friends coming to my house were subjected to the awfulness that is something called ‘QT.’ For YEARS, I served friends this instant tea stuff. They never drank it all. I never noticed.

Until…I learned how to make a proper cuppa.

During a mercifully slow, long evening shift manning a suicide hotline, I was taught the very strict rules on how to make a pot of tea by one of my fellow volunteers. It was what we did to pass the time, make and drink tea, as only the British can.

1. Pour fresh water into the kettle – boil
2. Rinse the pot with boiled water.
3. Put a teabag in for the pot and one for each cuppa, then add the water
4. Let steep according to taste
5. Add milk (not if it is Earl Grey, to do so is slightly common, apparently)
6. Add sugar (only if you are working class….posher friends seem to never even have sugar bowls – I love sugar in my tea)

The next time I had friends round, I made a ‘proper’ cup of tea. And my friends, now freed from the awfulness of the instant tea, heaped praise on my newly-minted, tea-making skill.

I was beside myself with disbelief. WHY could you not tell me it was awful, rather than be so polite? I begged an answer from my friends.

They just wanted to be polite. To criticize my awful tea would be rude.

I valued honesty above such a formal polite attitude, especially amongst my dear friends. But this was to be the first of many lessons in British culture.

The difference between American and British Clients

Recently I have had quite a few American clients in my clinic. They seemed much more demanding when compared to my British clients. An important ‘aha’ moment came as I realized why.

My American clients tell me in a very straight forward, no pussy-footing around way what they want from me – whether it be another pillow or that they are not warm enough. They just say it plainly.

None of the typically British verbal padding and reticence that I have become accustomed to… “Sorry, but would you mind awfully….” “Only if it isn’t too much trouble could you…”

A huge back catalog of situations where I have been puzzled by the ruffled feathers in response to what I thought was honest communication came cascading into my mind. Oh dear….that lesson has taken awhile to sink in.

The Brits are so much more polite and will hesitate, even knowing me well, to ask for another blanket or a lighter pressure or anything really. Or perhaps they will not continue to come for treatment. They value politeness over honesty.

I value honest feedback from my clients. Ask for what you need from me as your therapist relevant to your treatment. I will not think you impolite. I’ll just think you are honest.

And I will try my best to speak the British language politely, but please excuse any lapses into blunt American.

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For the last 18 months I have been studying Breast Cancer and how meditative movements, like tai chi, qigong, and other similar exercises influence the disease and survivor rates. Today I watched a lecture by David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD (a cancer survivor and researcher) on his book “Anti-Cancer – A Way of Life. It highlights a lot of ideas about preventing cancer that support my thesis on how qigong and tai chi can help survival rates, but it is the combo of diet, exercise and social support are really the key.

Every day your body produces cancer cells and every day your immune system keeps them at bay. And every day you are exposed to carcinogens. This applies to everyone, everyday.

But, only one in four actually develop the disease. The other 75% don’t. Why? Most of us do not because our body is strong enough to find and destroy the rebel cells before they grow enough to be a threat to our health. So the key is keeping ourselves strong and healthy.

Cancer is an epidemic and is increasing – some scientists argue this is due to aging populations, more cancer screening, and better methods of detection. But children are not older or screened regularly for cancer, yet childhood cancers are increasing by 5% a year (Steliarova, Fourcher, et al 2005, Lancet)

And breast cancer is a disease of Western developed countries of the Northern Hemisphere. Parts of China have no incidence of breast cancer, so what is it about our Western lives?

Five things
too much sugar – 12 tablespoons in a can of cola
too many transfats – Omega 6′s outstripping Omega 3′s
too much chemical pollution :-0
too much sedentary living
too much hopelessness and isolation in modern life

These factors are implicated in so many studies as clear reasons for the breast cancer epidemic. That is the bad news.
The good news is that we can boost our immune system by a synergistic combo of good diet, exercise, and social support.

One fabulous study completed last year at Ohio State by Andersen et al showed that after traditional cancer treatment those women who participated in a one year support group with help with diet, exercise and stress management had a nearly 70% decrease in mortality – they were 70% less likely to die! Every breast cancer survivor NEEDS to have this type of support group! Millions and billions in research and we already know how to help survivors have a 70% better chance at not relapsing and are not doing it????? Madness….NO INTERVENTION COMES CLOSE TO THIS RESULT, NONE, NADA.

Knowing how to live after a diagnosis is great – knowing how to live to avoid it in the first place is even better. By combining very simple diet and exercise changes – we can keep the balance on our immune system’s side. (it is the combo – diet or exercise alone are not nearly as effective)

And even when the balance tips and we get cancer, which sometimes may happen, we can still alter the terrain of our bodies in such a way that we can influence our genes to again restore our immunity.

Gene expression can be altered by just meditating, but add all the other diet and exercise stuff – a real miracle is possible! (I am not suggesting anyone not have conventional cancer treatment) I am advocating positive prevention and post-treatment behavior!

We actually could say we have a cure for breast cancer, because in some very real ways, we do. Information is power. We have that information and hence that power to alter our destiny and give ourselves a chance at remaining cancer-free in the face of the epidemic.

Oh it was so exciting to listen to David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD and I highly recommend his book, “Anti-Cancer: A Way of Life.”