What Is It?

Tai Chi (Tie-Chee) is an ancient Chinese system of slowly flowing movements and shifts of balance that strengthens the legs while conditioning the tendons and ligaments of the ankles, knees, and hips, increasing their range of motion and making them more resilient, less prone to injury. The constant weight shifts train balance and body awareness, leading to confident ease of movement within the form and in everyday life. Tai Chi is a physical exercise that focuses the mind, while conditioning the body. Practicing twenty minutes a day dissipates stress and reduces stress-related debilities, increases stamina, and strengthens the body and will.

How Does It Work?

It is believed that Tai Chi increases strength and promotes calm and harmony by improving the flow of internal energy (or qi) throughout the body. It is the calming, meditative aspect of Tai Chi that makes it particularly useful for reducing stress and anxiety. Indeed, people who do Tai Chi regularly say that it improves their sense of well-being. As an aerobic exercise, Tai Chi benefits the entire body, increasing muscle strength and enhancing balance and flexibility.

Health Benefits

Tai Chi can be used as a preventive health measure, as a way to maintain good health, or to help with a specific ailment. While Tai Chi cannot cure disease, it is often recommended as a complementary therapy to conventional treatment. For hundreds of years, groups of Chinese people, many of them elderly, have performed its fluid, graceful movements in parks throughout China as a way of staying vital. Today, many people in the United States, Canada, and Europe have become interested in attaining the health benefits of this ancient art as well.

Western Science recognizes the following benefits of practicing Tai Chi: increased oxygen uptake and utilization (more efficient breathing), reduced blood pressure, slower declines in cardiovascular power, increased bone density, increased strength and range of motion of joints, greater leg strength, knee strength, and flexibility, reduced levels of stress hormones during and after practice, improved immune function, and heightened mood states.

What Can You Expect?

 Sessions typically start with some sort of meditation to calm and focus the mind, followed by easy warm-up exercises to get the blood circulating. This helps you relax your mind and body in an effort to center yourself. Deep breathing (from the diaphragm as opposed to the chest) is a key element of Tai Chi. Over time, you will learn to coordinate your breathing with each movement you make.
After the warm-up, your instructor will teach a series of very slow flowing movements that performed together constitute a "form." Forms are a prearranged set of movements that reflect animal movements and have names like "Crane Spreads Its Wings" and "Grasping the Bird's Tail." We teach the Yang style Tai Chi, the most widely taught style.

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