Why I started studying tai chi 27 Years ago

By Linda Tenenbaum

I loved to dance. I still do. I was attracted to Tai Chi because of it's dancelike movements. So when I started studying it at a local community centre, I fell in love with the gentle circular movements and internal rhythms. I also adored watching my beautiful sifu Valerie Huston, perform and teach us in her elegant way. I admired the athleticism of my teacher Marc Tasse, and tried to make my moves look like his.
It wasn't until many years later, that I actually learned how to do it properly and why it was a self healing internal art.
At first glance it seems to be all arms and hand movements - A sort of slowed down martial arts movie, but later after many years of participating, listening and observing, I now understand how it is all about the core of the body moving, massaging, advancing, retreating and a lot less about the 'prettiness' of the moves.
Still the love of the movement was what kept me interested all these years, and for that I am grateful.
I remember one wet Sunday in the winter when we retreated from our outdoor class, to our teacher's rec room to watch movies of some old tai chi masters, including his father and his teacher from Hong Kong.
I remember being confused as to why they moved so little, so inconspicuously that I really didn't 'get' it.
Our teacher David Lau kept telling us that Tai Chi is an internal art, yet with external moves. and still I couldn't let go of the external perception which was my own benchmark.
One broken leg later, I was forced to turn my practice inward and found the deeper movements of tai chi. Did I really need to break my leg to find this out? Maybe.
I now look at Tai Chi in a totally different way. I work at my moves from the inside, I align myself without physical strength, although the strength is there.
I now understand a bit more of the many pearls of wisdom that I heard but did not understand at the time.
This is why I tell my students, it doesn't matter how beautiful it looks, it's more important how it feels.

Qigong & Tai Chi can keep you young!

What keeps us young? Hormones. We humans have both estrogens and testosterone in different ratios depending on our sex.

As we ladies get older, we lose an important source of our estrogen - the ovaries. However there are other sources of estrogen in the body which float around in the blood in the form of estradiol. Usually it is formed from fat cells and in the brain, sometimes it is not enough to balance the system as much as the way the ovaries did. BUT there have been studies that have shown that doing Qigong can raise or maintain the estradiol levels to a normal that keeps away symptoms of menopause.

Loss of estrogen can also affect the bones, and new studies are showing that Tai Chi can help keep the bone density healthy as well as help coordination and balance as we age.

For the gentlemen: As they age their levels of testosterone decrease naturally and the resulting ratio of estrogens:testosterone increases causes symptoms too. The study showed that men in the Qigong study had a reduction of the estradiols and thus improving the ratio to near normal again.

If you are interested in reading about the study go here:
http://www.healthy.net/scr/article.asp?id=382
It revealed that sex hormone levels may be balanced by the practice of Tai Chi & Qigong exercises:
“…female sex hormone (estrogen) levels tend to increase in men and decrease in women as aging occurs. Three studies indicate that tai chi & qigong exercise can reverse this trend. Estradiol levels were measured before and after qigong practice for one year…” Results showed that high estrodiol levels in men lowered to near normal, and low estrodiol levels in women raised to near normal after qigong practice.


These hormones keep our skin younger, keep our libido healthy and affect many systems in a positive way without the use of HRT. HRT (hormone replacement therapy) had been found to be very effective but greatly increased the risk for breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and blood clots, so is recommended by doctors less now.

So if you want to maintain your youthfulness as you get older. Find a class, teacher and learn how to do some simple Qigong exercises and keep your youth!

Much of the research upon which the author based this article is derived from a lengthy article by Kenneth Sancier Ph.d
from part d. Improvement in sex hormone levels in his article "Anti Aging Benefits of Qigong" published by The Qigong Institute.

Read my colleague Stan's blog Chi For Living - Searching for the Perfect Position for a very good recommendation for those beginning Tai Chi or other mind/body workouts.

I reinforce this idea with my students, & ask them not to copy me, but rather guide them with how it should feel to them.

Everyone has a different body structure, way of moving, mindset, personality. So why should we all look the same, especially when doing Tai Chi or Yoga?

Of course there are guidelines, but perhaps this style of movement is best learned from the inside out. Feeling the move rather than just imitating the teacher.

It reminds me of one time when I was teaching an aquafitness class and needed to scratch my ear.
Almost everyone in the class copied my move, since they were so tuned in to copying the exercises.

In this respect, when teaching, I try not to focus too much on the technical aspects of a move at first, but rather I start with verbal cues such as:
"move your hands as if they were resting on a balloon floating up" or "bounce a basketball in front of you in slow motion" etc. Imagery is very powerful and helps a participant to use their own experiences to move properly.

Another helpful tip is if someone has difficulty in coordinating the arms and feet moves at the same time, they can be learned separately with a positive effect. In fact they may get 'soong'(Chinese for relaxed with soft structure) much faster and get the benefits from the class that much faster. Too much input creates tension both physical, and mental, and thus decreases the energetic flow as well.