Tai Chi for Seniors

Fear of falling is the number one fear among older adults, according to a recent study. And it is no wonder. In the United States, 60,000 of the 300,000 people who break a hip from a fall will die within the twelve months of their accident. One important way for older adults to stay on their feet is by practicing the Chinese health exercise, Taiji. However, most seniors taking Taiji classes are not getting the help they need.
Recently I received a telephone call from a woman who was taking Taiji classes at her local YMCA. She had read that Taiji could help her balance but she found the exercise too demanding. She could not practice at home because she could not remember the sequence of the movements. She was aware that classes twice a week was simply not enough to improve her balance significantly.
She had clearly identified the major obstacle preventing older adults from learning Taiji. Memory! Taiji, as it is generally taught, consists of 60 to 120 movements in sequence depending on the form. It is no secret that as we age, our short-term memory diminishes and concentration becomes more difficult.
Physical problems can also stand in the way of older adults learning Taiji. For example, most of the weight sinks down on one leg or the other. If someone has knee, foot or other leg problems, which many elderly people have, Taiji will prove to be too painful.
Yet Taiji has been shown to improve balance. A major study at Emory University concluded that adults over 70 doing Taiji fell 47.5% less than the control group. This led to a sense of well-being about walking because the participants knew they were less likely to fall. The Emory study also reported other important benefits of Taiji such as a reduction in blood pressure and an increase in hand-grip strength. Suddenly Taiji was on the exercise map for older adults.
So the dilemma is this: With all the benefits that Taiji has to offer seniors, can it be modified to meet their needs? Fortunately the answer is yes.
The Emory Study actually points the way to solving this problem. A closer look at the study shows that the method of Taiji taught to the older adults was a modified form of only a few movements. Moreover, for the first few weeks Dr. Tingsen Xu, the Taiji teacher of the study, concentrated on breathing, focusing the mind and developing a sense of the center of gravity. In other words Dr. Xu curtailed the longer sequence and excluded the more difficult moves of Taiji while emphasizing certain Taiji principles to aid balance and walking. I believe we can utilize Dr. Xu’s methodology and take it one step further. We can extract the principles that form the basis of Taiji and teach them in a simple exercise called, ‘Taiji Walking.’
Look for the next Blog: 'The Ten Principles of Taiji Falls Prevention.'

In the Rose Garden, Part II

The drama between the cat and the crow is over. After their intense confrontation I try to return to Wuji. This is not easy. I try to focus on my breath but my mind is far from being cooperative. It is full of thoughts and ideas, running wild like a swollen river in spring. I grow impatient because I have to teach soon. I have a tight schedule today. But I persist, focusing on my breath. Finally my mind quiets down. I wait until a feeling moves me to sink my weight into my right leg. With the separation of weight Wuji has given way to Taiji and yet something of Wuji’s emptiness remains within me.
As I move through the form, I become aware that my moving from Wuji to Taiji, from stillness to movement, replicates the Chinese idea of how the universe was created. In the beginning there was not a void but rather emptiness. Inside the emptiness latent energy was gaining force like a volcano before its eruption. Finally the energy could no longer be contained. It exploded, a big bang, and the world separated and expanded from one into two and into ten and into ten thousand. The emptiness was Wuji and the separation into Yin and Yang was Taiji. And within the separation was emptiness and within the emptiness was separation. They had different forms but were the same like the ocean and the waves.
Then, a page turns and a different story replaces the Chinese one. It is a narrative that has strong roots in this land. While it is different from the Chinese story, it tells an astonishingly similar tale.
‘In the Beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and empty (Wuji); and darkness was on the face of the deep. And a wind (Qi) from God moved over the surface of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God divided the light from the darkness.’ He separated them into Yin and Yang, the dark being Yin and light being Yang. And later he made woman and man, also a separation into Yin and Yang. In fact the entire Biblical creation narrative is one of separation into complementary opposites.
But, in contrast to the Chinese story, the Jewish narrative ascribes God as the First Cause. He was the Prime Mover of creation. He created Dao, the emptiness of Wuji and the energy within it. He created and determined how the laws of the universe will function. While similar when describing the material universe, the Jewish and Chinese stories of creation diverge sharply with regard to its origins.
I can live with this contradiction. I am content to swim in the waters of both traditions and to let the unknowable remain that way until it is revealed. When the Messiah comes, I tell my Christian friends, I have one question: ‘Is this your first or second visit to Jerusalem?’ I have my questions but they can wait.
What I do know is this: I am aware of my past, my present and my future. I can think logically and strategically. I know I am the product of thousands of years of Jewish history. This is why I am here in this Rose Garden in this Holy City. But I am also the product of thousands of years of Chinese history. This is why I am doing Taiji in this garden. These two ancient traditions, contained within me, are parallel streams that meet here. A Chinese proverb says that all rivers eventually merge with the sea. Perhaps this is the way of all traditions; that at some point they will be subsumed within a larger truth.
Today my mind seems to have a mind of its own. I am giving it free reign and allowing it to roam where it will. On the physical plane I have moved from Wuji to Taiji and returned to Wuji, the beginning posture, completing the circle. Each time I do Taiji, it is different and yet it is the same form with the same principles.
Taiji is a spiraling circle. No point on the spiral ever returns to the same place. This is not unlike the Jewish holidays, the same but always different. There is no accounting for what might happen. Life is full of cats and crows, of worlds within worlds. It is full of God and it is full of human beings with the wisdom to create Taiji and the wherewithal to study it.
My students are arriving. It is time for another act of creation. I will try to teach them how to stand and move in the Taiji way. To begin, I will endeavor to introduce the idea of Wuji. After greeting my students I stand in front of the class. But before I begin, a student asks: ‘I was wondering, where did Taiji come from?’ ‘China,’ I say with a straight face. There is laughter. ‘I’m glad you asked that,’ I say, changing course in mid-stream, ‘I’ve been waiting to tell you the story of Zheng San-feng and the creation of Taijiquan.’
Wuji will have to wait like my stack of unanswered questions. Taiji has taught me patience.

Is it Tai Chi or Tai Ji?

Recently I was watching a Tai Chi teacher conducting a class on television. She explained that the ‘Chi’ of Tai Chi meant ‘breath’ or ‘life force’ in Chinese. Unfortunately she had made a common mistake that has its origins in the early Wade-Giles system of transliteration from Chinese to English. The ‘Chi’ of Tai Chi is translated as ‘Ultimate’ and Tai Chi as ‘The Supreme Ultimate.’ The Chi meaning ‘life force’ is spelled properly with an apostrophe, Ch’i. This apostrophe means that the ‘ch’ should be sounded like the ‘ch’ of chair.
In the Wales-Giles system when ‘ch’ preceded an ‘i’ without an apostrophe it has a ‘j’ sound like the word, ‘jar.’ Thus Chi of T’ai Chi should actually be pronounced, Jee, not chee. What happened is that in common usage people dropped the apostrophe and thus Ch’i became Chi, causing confusion with the Chi of Tai Chi. Moreover, the Tai of Tai Chi should be spelled with an apostrophe, T’ai. This means that the ‘t’ is pronounced as a ‘t.’ A ‘t’ without an apostrophe is pronounced as a ‘d,’ for example, Tao is actually pronounced, ‘Dao.’
I know this explanation is confusing and it comes as no surprise that English speakers like the teacher on TV are confused. There is hope. Today the Wade-Giles system is being eased out and the Hanyu Pinyin system is replacing it.
In my previous entries you will have noticed that I have spelled T’ai Chi Ch’uan as Taijiquan. This is because I have used the Pinyin system of transliteration from Chinese to Roman letters (not English letters) in order to conform to modern international standards. Hanyu Pinyin was adopted by the Peoples Republic of China in 1979 and has superseded the previous Wade-Giles system (T’ai Chi Ch’uan). Most international systems, universities and newspapers now use the Pinyin system. Regarding Tai Chi, in the Pinyin system Chi is written with a ‘j’, which sounds like the ‘j’ of the word,‘jar.’ So it is Taiji, not Taichi. The Pinyin system is not perfect for English speakers because ‘Ch’ of the chair sound is written with a ‘Q.’
Setting aside the merits or demerits of the two systems, Pinyin tranliteration is becoming the standard. You will notice that I employ Tai Chi as my web address and in my blog title. This is because I want you to visit my sites. I know that the traffic will be much less if I use Jerusalem Taiji Journal. Tai Chi is still more popular in common usage. You will also notice that my entries are written in the Pinyin system. This is my way of gradually switching over to Pinyin system.
The answer to the above question is that both T’ai Chi and Tai Ji are correct. But, for serious Taiji people, it is important to be aware of the nuances.