Tai-Chi and Healing

[Path to Mastery 2/24/10 – Wk24 D3 (Str 9.12.09)(Ph2 11.15.09)]

Continuing our Tai-Chi Journey:

Tai-Chi is not only a great exercise, martial art, and meditation, but also a great healing art.  Tai-Chi is both a self-healing and healing others art.  

So many people with different kinds of ailment get better from doing Tai-Chi.  I just went on the internet to pull some references and there is tons of it out there.  Here is one quote that covered a wide range:  

“The Harvard publication included the latest research on how tai chi could benefit patients with arthritis, breast cancer, heart disease, hypertension, Parkinson's disease, stroke, even sleep problems and low bone density.
"This is big," Douglas said.

-- Orlando Sentinel, August 17, 2009
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/health/orl-self-health-tai-chi-081709aug17,0,4151868.story

I’d say that covers quite the range, but just so you know, the list is quite a bit longer.  Just from memory and experience, I know it helps with high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, balance and strength, heightened immunity, stress management, ADD, Multiple Sclerosis as well.   

Tai-Chi focuses on strengthening your health instead of getting rid of your disease.  You will commonly hear of older people practicing Tai-Chi living their lives like young people.  When Gabriel, my teacher, was in his eighties, he was flipping me around like a rag doll, and I was in my twenties.  

Now, this only covers the healing benefits of doing Tai-Chi, but on top of these benefits, Tai-Chi also has healing methods to help other people.  Tai-Chi healing methods range from Qi-Gong healing, joint manipulation, massage, and acupressure.   

Tai-Chi healing is effective because it comes from first hand experience.  In Tai-Chi a practitioner first experiences healing on one’s own body.  Since one has experienced the benefits, one is intimately familiar with how the healing works.  Through practicing Tai-Chi, one gains a keen understanding of the body.  Science is still unfolding all the different reasons as to why Tai-Chi has such profound health benefits for you but while science is searching from the outside, you become the scientist of your own body.  This intuitive sense becomes a great aid in healing.    
    
It is also effective because the practitioner learns to understand the weaknesses and the strengths of the body and mind intimately well. It is a martial art, so it needs to understand what makes the body and mind be strong, and when, where and how they are weak.  When you know how to destroy, then you also know how to strengthen.    

Tai-Chi healing knowledge comes from the accumulated effort of taking care of injuries.  It’s a martial art after all.  One of my old martial art teachers used to say, first learn how to heal before you learn how to break.    

Tai-Chi also trains for sensitivity.  I saw my teacher working on someone else once and I thought they were doing pushing hands, but upon further examination, I realized that he was just moving the patience limb by listening to it and by moving it to get rid of its resistance and to restore the flow of the movement.  He had enough sensitivity to feel the whole body through the arm and how it was connected to the rest of the body.

Tai-Chi is an internal martial art, which means that it is a type of Chi-Gong exercise.  Chi-Gong means Energy Cultivation.  The practitioner learns how to cultivate energy and how to guide it.  As part of the practice, the practitioner learns how to use the energy to heal.  I remember one time when we were sparring, Joseph got kicked in the shin.  He got kicked hard enough where the shin started getting black and blue and started swelling up.  Mike and I started sending Chi and it started healing immediately.  By the end of it, the bruise was practically gone.  When we tap into that energy and learn how to harness it, our lives are very different.     

This would be some of the reason why Tai-Chi is an effective healing art.  I’d like to recommend for you to go on the internet and do some research by yourself.  You’ll be surprised how much research there is on Tai-Chi and how widely it is recommended!

History of Tai-Chi Journey up to this point:

Before the blog opened to the public, we covered the single person part of the system.

1. Qi-Gong (Taoist Longevity, White Crane Qi-Gong)

2. Standing Meditation

3. Stepping Meditation

4. 7 Basics

5. Basic Form

6. 30 Form

7. 108 Form

Interactive training after we went public with the blog.

1. 8 Type Pushing Hands (Covered from 2/2 ~ 2/11)

2. San-Shou (Covered from 2/12 ~ 2/15)

3. Ba-Gua.(Covering from 2/16 ~ 2/19)

4. Weapons (Covered on 2/23)

5. Healing System (Covered today)

Next we have our non-structured part of the system