Monday, July 7, 2008

Tai Chi Exercises Suitable for Arthritis

One of the best approaches in controlling arthritis is exercise. Next to it is proper diet and so on. Almost all medical experts’ opinions are focused on the natural way of preventing arthritis which is through practicing Tai Chi. Furthermore, they concluded that Tai Chi exercises that are suitable for arthritis are those that are concerned with improving muscular strength, fitness and flexibility. It is indeed one of the most effective programs ever to hit the medical scene.

Tai Chi has already proven a lot of things since its emergence during ancient China. Scientific studies proved that Tai Chi is not only a form of exercise for daily living but also a moving treatment for those who need medical help inside and out. Tai Chi implored many benefits aside from improvement of flexibility and maintaining fitness.

Some of these benefits are: integrating the mind to be one with the body and spirit, improving qi (internal energy), promote correct posture of the body, it is one of the easiest exercises to learn, inexpensive and it can be suitable for any age.

Battling Arthritis

Arthritis is the inflammation of bones most specifically, the joints. It can be caused by numerous factors like diet, age, obesity, etc. It can be very aggravating during parts of the day because the person who has this illness can experience stiffness and pain that somehow tends to discourage those experiencing it to move or engage in exercise.

But if that person will not make even the simplest exercise moves to battle out arthritis, it will get much worse every waking day because the joints will continue to “rust” and this will contribute to more pain. However, if you will participate in exercise programs such as Tai Chi, which is diagnosed to be very effective in preventing arthritis severity, it will keep your bones, joints and muscles healthy.

It is irrefutable; exercise is indeed part of the therapeutic aspect to prevent arthritis especially in older ones. By keeping the tissues and muscles strong, it can further protect and support the joints. Once exercise is facilitated, it will promote proper circulation and provide body fluid and nourished blood to the tendons, muscles and joints which are said to promote healing.

There are 4 kinds of the most suitable Tai Chi exercises that a person may perform.

1. Muscle Strengthening
Exercises like these increase and maintain the strength of the muscles. It will minimize further injuries that may occur and reduce the pain so as to improve muscle strength and give you the capability to do more than less.

2. Flexibility
This reduces the stiffness thus keeping the joints more flexible. Range-of-motion exercises can help you move joints that are affected in different directions. By doing Tai Chi, it will increase a person’s flexibility.

3. Posture
Promoting the correct posture through exercises has proven the ability to decrease the wearing of muscles and joints. This also helps excavate the positive emotions in you.

4. Fitness
Cardio-respiratory exercises or fitness exercises are those that help in strengthening the lungs and heart and increasing the person’s stamina that are all important in maintaining proper health. Tissues and joints always need the proper supply of oxygen for rejuvenation and healing.

Through Tai Chi, better blood and oxygen circulation is promoted which in return will keep the muscles strong and joints flexible.

Looking Forward to Tai Chi Benefits and Advantages

Tai Chi can greatly benefit and give out tremendous advantages that one can never imagine. It is both therapeutic and healthy. Aside from that, it can also be a sort of martial art but only a few recognize that it is somewhat a slower version of Chinese kung fu. It determines no age, you can be as young or as old as you can get. It puts no boundaries between the weak and the strong. It also connects the energy levels of men and women. Tai Chi is neither limited nor choosy.

Practicing Tai Chi need not command certain limitations like traveling through distance, space availability, appropriate attire and equipments for practice, weather conditions, and overwhelming fees. Tai Chi is an exercise that you can perform consistently due to its features that is not bounded by certain conditions.

Benefits of Tai Chi
Looking Tai Chi in a different way can make you cultivate its many wonderful benefits. It’s up to the person on how he or she would use the benefits to his or her advantage.

General – Benefits in general are those that comprises of the whole person including mind, body and spirit. Tai Chi serves as a tool for developing dynamics and possibilities. If practiced at a daily basis, it will facilitate longevity and promote good health. Through its meditative aspect, it provides sufficient relaxation that eliminates accumulated stress and tension which in return, revitalizes and nurtures the body. The principle of perseverance and self-discipline are also cultivated.

Occupational – The benefits in which it provides individuals who are working their butts off to be able to release a relative amount of tension and stress that is acquired upon working. Tai Chi provides training for the awareness of stressful and inefficient patterns of motion that are non-productive and debilitating to the physical aura of the body. After performing for 30 minutes, at least, the individual will feel more the significance of Tai Chi through its rejuvenating and revitalizing effects.

Geriatric – Benefits regarding old people can be numerous. First, Tai Chi provides opportunities for adults in the older stage to experience exercises that can be good for their health. Tai Chi is an exercise that can be done, in observance and precaution, by anyone especially those belonging in the geriatric stage.

Now, older adults can perform exercises without restrictions or limitations through the practice of Tai Chi. There are different movements which Tai Chi is concerned about. A lot of people can do certain range of motion even if they are at a standing or sitting position. It overcomes an individual’s incapacity to a possible state.

For the newcomers and older people, Tai Chi is an easy grasp because of the slow, smooth movements. The result? Internal and external health that brings a motivational vitality that is lacking in individuals that are aging. Therefore, Tai Chi can bring about significance to those lacking or needing exercise.

Advantages

1.Affordable. No special, expensive equipments needed to start the session. Clothing can be of any kind for as long as it keeps you moving freely and is comfortable. The environment can be outdoors or indoors, windy, cloudy, sunny, name it.

2.It can be a nice way of socializing.

3.Tai Chi is a progressive exercise that becomes more effective and intriguing.

4.It is pleasurable and interesting.

Tai Chi: An Overview

If you translate Tai Chi (Taiji), it would mean “Supreme Ultimate Force”. It is somewhat a state of infinite and absolute potentiality. It tackles on the concept between yin and yang or the Two Aspects governing the Four Realms and Five Elements. Using those very important aspects, the world is created. Tai Chi also means “unity, one, or being able to attain oneness.”



With the use of the concept of the positive and negative energy, Tai Chi is a form of force that can be assumed as a dual dynamic state in which force coming from within the body is used in means of achieving the supreme and ultimate discipline in oneself.



Today, Tai Chi is practiced in many parts of the world including the Western World. It can be a sort of moving meditation and yoga combined. Tai Chi has its many forms or sets that consist of a number of sequential movements that was derived from martial arts that can be in the form of imitating the movements of different kinds of birds and animals in the most gentle and invigorating way. Even if it is a kind of movement involving martial arts, Tai Chi is done in a soft and graceful manner entailing smooth transitions in between.



Practitioners see Tai Chi as a form of meditative interaction between the mind, body, soul and the environment. They don’t see it as a martial art technique but as an exercise to calm the body. Some consider Tai Chi as a combat interest because of its considerable force.



With regards to Chinese medicine and philosophy, the existence of “chi” is important to the vitality that enables to animate the body. One of the many aims of Tai Chi is to promote circulation of the “chi” throughout the body. By promoting this belief, the vitality and health of a person is normally enhanced. Once the “chi” circulates around the body, it goes to the pattern of the vascular and nervous system and any organ correlated to it. Thus, making Tai Chi connected with the principles of oriental healing and acupuncture.



One of the most familiar aims of Tai Chi is fostering the calmness and tranquility of the mind. One’s mind must be focused on executing the exercise precisely because doing it in a proper manner provides an avenue to learn things about balance, motor control, alignment, movement rhythm, and the list goes on. If the person practicing Tai Chi can practice it every day, then he or she will reach to the extent of being able to stand, run, move, and walk in a better position. It also touches some of the spheres in a person’s life as well.



There are numerous benefits seen by practitioners regarding Tai Chi. One of which is inhibiting the correct posture and alignment of the body which lessens further injuries and tension.



Push-hands is a kind of Tai Chi that involves two persons. Here, principles regarding Tai Chi are applied in a manner that the response of the other person is developed in a more sensitive way. It is an opportunity to exhibit martial arts aspects in a kind of a slow motion combat, without hurting the opponent.



An emphasis that Tai Chi has channeled through its practitioners is that they can give out an energy that may be in a form of a destructive behavior or context without dissipating that energy in a harmful way.

Learning the Sword of Tai Chi

Usually, teachers will give the students sufficient time to practice all the basic moves first before quarrying in the more intense techniques. It will take a student at least 2-3 years of experience before letting him handle the tao (knife or short sword). If the student is really good and has already mastered all arts within a year, then he can be a candidate to learn the tao earlier than expected.

It will take a student at least 10 years of Tai Chi experience to handle the real thing. Point is, teachers take their craft very seriously. That is why some hesitate to teach the sword unless they are sure that the person can handle the blade in its essence. It is seldom to encounter a master that teaches the sword because it is a very dangerous thing to learn especially if the person in not really equipped to learn it. Some will not teach it at all.

That was before. In this generation, there are a lot of teachers that allow the students to learn the way of the sword, instantly, after knowing the basic of Tai Chi. As a sort of progression first, they would teach the students the basic things like standing meditation. Push Hands will come next. There would also be some specific moves like the Tchoung style in its fast form. Practicing these conveys a solid foundation of the techniques and movements of the body.

Weapons will be introduced. They have varieties of teachings regarding swords like tao, chien, etc. After mastering the independent use of the swords, they would continue to practice but this time, in twos. Practitioners will arrange the sword patterns then comes the moment of sparring.

When chien is used in sparring, it is like practicing Push Hands with a weapon. Similar circular movements are the ones that are used to nick, thrust, slice and cut. Chopping movements can be found in tao but not in chien applications.

Concepts
Every type of martial art revolves around concepts. An art’s methods of training must always reflect the concepts and must see to it that every movement is in harmony with the entire faculty. In Tai Chi sword, there are specifications, that wouldn’t be a surprise. Sadly, the stiff and wooden way that is taught by some instructors doesn’t reflect the energy predicted in Tai Chi.

Tai Chi Chuan derives its concepts from several forms of performing the chien single-handedly. Yang style is the most common form. It is composed of 56 – 64 movements. The variations of the standard pattern will greatly depend on the school of thought and the emphasis of each one.

During practice of the sword, a person must focus on the smoothness and calmness of the movement. The mind should be as calm as the quiet ocean to be able to reflect the innermost feeling of a person. The body must stay afloat like sailing into clear skies.

One of the reasons why people study the art of the sword is because the weapon brings the elements of the mind and the body in unity. To use the sword correctly, one must assume that is it a part of his body and not just a weapon of destruction.

He must realize that the sword is a matter of importance that when taken away is a bigger ordeal.

Suitable Styles and Advices for Tai Chi Lovers

There is a common misconception for the new generation to think that Tai Chi is just for the elderly. It is popular for the older people because Tai Chi can contribute so much to their health. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t need to experience the rejuvenating power of Tai Chi. In fact, there are several forms of Tai Chi that can be practiced by people of all ages.



If they wanted something subtle and can also be used as a form of self-defense, you can try to practice the Sun style. It was derived from different kung fu techniques. You can choose from the different kinds of styles, anything that suits you.



Classes that form Tai Chi raises up to 15-20 people only. This is so they wouldn’t crowd in one place because Tai Chi is an art that needs sufficient space; wide enough to fit everyone in and not hit each other while doing the activity. The most common population included therein are those belonging to the early 20s until the late 80s. These are the people who see the benefits in performing Tai Chi.



According to physical therapists and those that are joined in the medical field, there are five distinct forms of Tai Chi and within these styles there are different variations. It is said that Tai Chi is suitable for those who are experiencing arthritis. Therapists are using the Sun style Tai Chi for lessening the effects of arthritis. If you are the kind that has arthritis, never try the Chen style because it is a bit brisk and is an active style that is not very much recommended.



If you have enrolled in a Tai Chi class that introduces several styles, that would be fine. Always remember that the right kind of Tai Chi is the one that you can easily perform without the fear of suffering pain or going through the excruciating movements that you can’t do. You have to do motions that don’t need any force.



Before enrolling in a Tai Chi session, make sure that you have spare time because it lasts for an hour and is held at least once or thrice a week. First, the instructors will start out on the easy task like a subtle warm up and deep breathing exercises. They may also suggest a brief meditation to calm the mind.



The instructor will demonstrate poses leading to sequences until it is linked in longer and smoother sequences that are all done in a step-by-step manner. You can either be taught to perform slowly or in a more energetic and speedy way. But you have to take note that the movements are always done in a very soft and graceful manner. The attention to posture and breathing is always emphasized.



As the way classes begin, it’s the way classes end. Sometimes, you do exercises to cool you down or even a short meditation is done. And when the class is adjourned, you will feel more refreshed and relaxed than before. If ever you felt pain on parts of your muscles and joints, tell your instructor about it. So as to change the movements that can be applied for your limits.



Now before you apply to the program, ask your doctor’s opinion about it especially if you have encountered any health problems in the past. You can ask certain advise if what are the movements to prevent.

Tai Chi Uplifts External and Internal Systems

What is an external system? What is an internal system? The answer lies beyond its difference.

Tai Chi is a form of exercise that incorporates between the inner and outer aspect of a human being. When one says that is affects the external system, it means that Tai Chi settles within the depths of a human’s body strength. One that exhibits efforts and movements and is equated with the aspects of his or her environment. The external system involves how the body initiates movement and react to how outside factors is expressed.

While the internal system, as opposed to the latter, means that the mind’s conscious directions and the spirit’s way of rejuvenating itself, as it performs, can affect the entire body. It affects the body’s way of interacting with its environment.

Even though these two aspects may differ with the way they interact, there is purpose. When the body’s external systems can no longer define the solution, the internal systems come in. Through Tai Chi, both systems are equal.

One unique factor that can be noted about an internal system is that once the mind develops and directs energy, it circulates within the body even if it seems almost impossible. This is one key factor to acquire energy from within without producing intense feelings, eliminating nervousness, and promoting tranquility without experiencing lethargic reactions. Unlike the external systems, which require perspiration in order to work, using the mind as a tool to is very effective in terms of body relaxation and meditation. Exercising using the mind require complete concentration and needs sustained attention.

This is where Tai Chi comes in. Combining the two most essential aspects of a person’s human form can increase a person’s resistance to possibilities of breaking down. There are several types of exercises that can relieve tension and stress. However, these exercises are only concerned with the temporary view. It can’t promise relief in an everlasting manner. Re-accumulation of stress and tension can still be possible through repetition of routines made daily intended to target a person’s emotional, mental and physical patterns.

But if Tai Chi is managed in a person’s life, it will not only teach that person how to conquer the stressors in his life but also manage to maintain the positive aura without moving a muscle. Increasing one’s awareness of Tai Chi can reorient the mind, body and emotions to stay healthy and respond to stress in a proper way without inhibiting signs of anxiety or tension.

Many of those who admire Tai Chi appreciate it in every respect. As one advances in time, he will notice that the results of Tai Chi is indispensable compared to exercises that needs further retaining. Tai Chi can be done even in the absence of equipments. All you need to be equipped with is a steady heart and a decisive mind.

In the continuous fight against the different ailments of the body, it is important that people recognize Tai Chi’s valuable contribution. Different parts of the body are developed. For example, breathing is enhanced because oxygen can freely move about through the help of Tai Chi’s principles.

Not only is the pattern improved but it is clearly visible to the one practicing the art that Tai Chi is a very effective way for the external and internal systems to communicate as one and work as one.

Preventing Arthritis Through Tai Chi

There are more than one reason why many believe Tai Chi helps reduce the painful effects of arthritis. It’s because Tai Chi doesn’t focus only on the medical aspects but also in the healing properties of the mind and an inner energy that is called as Qi.

Mind Power
The power of the positive mind can cure a lot of sickness and disabilities. A positive mind can help integrate and hasten healing. Tai Chi connects the mind and body manipulation of the mind that is conscious. It directs the internal force within the body and the internal force directs the movement that is produced. Upon practicing Tai Chi, a person focuses on the coordination and focuses on the movements of the body. Through mental training, Tai Chi enhances mind clarity, uplifts the mood and improves proper relaxation.

There have been studies about Tai Chi as an alternative treatment for arthritis and as concluded, it has been found that it complements and can stand on its own as a treatment. The great power of the mind is modified as one of the most powerful and effective tool to prevent arthritis.

Qi Power
Qi is known as the energy in the life of a person. This kind of energy is derived from the combination of three essentials namely: air we breathe in, Qi of kidney and Qi from water and food that is absorbed by the body from the digestive system. Once Qi circulates in the body, it performs numerous tasks to let systems in the body perform well. If you let Qi penetrate in your body and maintain strong relativity with it, then you will become stronger and healthier.

Through the slow and gentle movements of Tai Chi, it enables the opening of channels, keeping them supple and strong. It maintains the muscle’s rhythmic exhibitions. If you are someone who wanted Qi to radiate inside the body and be further enhanced, Tai Chi is the answer. Fields of Chinese medicine stated that arthritis can be also the end effect of a very slow and sluggish flow of the internal energy.

Programs for Tai Chi have been verified in a lot of ways but all ends up in three objectives:

a.Provide safety and precision to learn the different techniques in the most accepted practices that will fit people of all ages.

b. Relieve the pain that is caused by stiffness of the muscles and bones and the other causes of arthritis that is related to the problem.

c. Improve the body’s relaxation and maintain a healthy way of life.

Characteristics of programs aimed for Tai Chi preventing arthritis goes as follows:

a. High stances to make it easy for people to adapt and learn.

b. Steps that is agile. This is the one factor that is concerned with the improved mobility and is very essential in the practice of Tai Chi to people with arthritis.

c. Numerous Qigong movements and exercises can improve relaxation and promote healing.

No matter how people look at it, Tai Chi has already proven its worth in terms of arthritis treatment. The thing is, you have to look for the proper program that has the purpose of eliminating the effects of arthritis and eventually getting rid of it. Make sure that the program offers complete sets of basic and advanced forms of exercises.