Why You Need to Take Tai Chi
By Susan Finley, RKC
Didn’t you hate it when your mom used to say, “Susan (or whoever),
you NEED to clean your room” or “you NEED to empty the dishwasher” or
even “you NEED to be nicer to your little brother.” One time I heard a
young girl retort to her mother, “I don’t NEED to do anything but be
born and die so back off.” I was never quite that forward with my own
mother and would usually do whatever was asked even if I grumbled about
it. But I hated the word “need.”
Well, here I go being your mother. Just imagine that I’m yelling this
at you in my most shrill voice—“You NEED to take a Tai Chi class!”
Now I’m going to tell you why…
I took my first Tai Chi class this morning here at the gym. We’ve been
offering them on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 8–9 a.m. since the
first of the year. The young man who teaches the class is a professional
mixed martial arts fighter and incredibly knowledgeable. There were
three participants. The style that we’re learning is called Wu dang, and
there are 120 movements in the entire sequence. I think we learned ten
of them this morning. Was I sweating? Not after I stripped down to my
tank top. But I was warm in my muscles like I had been working out for
an hour. And I had this great sense of well-being. It was calming and
exhilarating all at the same time.
So why exactly do you NEED to take Tai Chi?
Look at all these benefits:
1. Joint mobility: No matter whether you’re active in a sport or
just hanging out doing nothing, your joints are being stressed. Tight
muscles stress your joints and limit range of motion. De-facilitated
muscles do the same thing. If you increase your joint mobility, you can
increase your range of motion in your squat, golf swing, tennis serve,
or remote control reach when you’re just sitting on the couch. Preserve
joint health. Take Tai Chi.
2. Balance and stability: Right now, stand on one leg. DO IT! How
long did you last? Five seconds? Ten seconds? Longer? Probably not
because we just don’t do much balance and stability work. I see clients
all day who can’t stabilize well enough to do a high step over
something. And how many older people do you know who have fallen because
they lost their balance? For that matter, Marc probably wouldn’t have
fallen and torn his triceps is he had been taking Tai Chi (ok, so that
could be a stretch but maybe not). Don’t fall and hurt yourself. Take
Tai Chi!
3. Grace: Again, I don’t care what sport you play, but grace is a
huge part of it. Powerlifting takes brute strength and lots of training,
but it also takes grace. To be successful, you don’t just have to be
strong. You have to be spatially aware of your body and how it flows
with the surroundings. You wouldn’t ever get onto the squat platform in
a suit and knee wraps without some sort of grace and awareness. And
think about golf—driving, putting, and chipping all take different body
positions and awareness. You need to understand the length of your body
and the club and be able to judge how to put it all together to hit that
little white ball and make it do what you want. Ever seen an elephant
play golf? It probably wouldn’t work unless he took Tai Chi. Be
graceful. Take Tai Chi!
4. Brain power: One of the members in class this morning has
chronic back pain. In studying her condition, she has read that chronic
pain can bring about up to a 10 percent diminished brain capacity. My
assumption is that your brain starts to shut down due to the pain. How
scary is that? Tai Chi is a discipline that can help increase brain
power. You have to learn the moves and combinations, and you’re
constantly forcing your brain to move in new and different ways. We
learned everything in a slow and controlled manner this morning, but
Steve also showed us the martial arts version, which is really fast. I
can’t imagine what my brain would have to do to be able to accomplish a
120 move series quickly. Be smarter. Take Tai Chi!
5. Peace and quiet: The one thing I have learned recently in my
personal yoga practice is that I wasn’t allowing myself to have genuine
peace and quiet at any time during my day. What about you? You get up
and turn on the TV, eat, get the kids up, go to work, go to the gym,
come home and eat dinner, watch more TV, and go to sleep. Our daily
lives don’t lend themselves to peace and quiet. Many of us don’t even
know what that would even feel like. I can tell you that when you learn
to add even five minutes of quiet into your day, you’re rejuvenated for
everything. You train better and just act like a better human being. Be
more peaceful. Take Tai Chi!
Convinced yet? You can take all five of these benefits and make them
work for any sport. We have tri-athletes who work out at our gym.
Imagine if they could increase joint mobility and lengthen their running
stride or if they had better balance to help them through potential
crash situations on the bike. What if you don’t have a sport but just
enjoy life. Wouldn’t increased mobility help you to garden? Would an
increase in brain power help you with the crosswords in the morning?
Could it help stave off Alzheimer’s? Don’t you deserve to give yourself
this gift? We all deserve it. So whether you take Tai Chi here at South
Carolina Barbell or you find a class in your neighborhood, you really do
NEED to take a Tai Chi class.
Susan Finley is the manager of South Carolina Barbell. She is a small
time powerlifter who has just recently hit a bench goal of 185 lbs. She
is a level I and level II certified kettlebell instructor through Dragon
Door. Not only does she train for powerlifting, but she teaches three
kettlebell classes a week and attempts at least two yoga classes a week
as well. Currently, Susan is working on an article on why you need to do
Yin Yoga and another one on the role self esteem plays in any training
program. To get in touch with Susan, visit
www.southcarolinabarbell.com.
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strength training industry by providing the highest quality strength
training products and services while providing the highest level of
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information, and accessories, visit us at www.EliteFTS.com.
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