Practical Tai Chi Chuan – Neil Rosiak

Practical Tai Chi Chuan Sweden: Push Hands Competition (Paul Silfverstrale)

Practical Tai Chi Chuan Everett – In The News With Nasal Breathing

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/7-surprising-benefits-of-nose-breathing-5574225?utm_source=Goodevening&src_src=Goodevening&utm_campaign=gv-2024-04-21&src_cmp=gv-2024-04-21&utm_medium=email&est=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZeclexof6cXH76cBrGFQB7B70g0NKCSnEbNCpYIEkavKL7HjGfoZ

Practical Tai Chi Chuan Everett – In What Way is it “Practical”?

I have written previously about how traditional tai chi in general, and our “Practical Tai Chi Chuan” in particular, are complete in the usual martial arts sense and in many other ways. Here is just one example of what we mean by complete or practical: The video below of myself and several others doing the Long Round Hand Form, which takes from 15 to 25 minutes, was done just four months (almost to the day) after my major surgery (right hip replacement).

Tai Chi can be used to rehabilitate almost anything. I had no physical therapy after my surgery. By the time the subject came up, I was already working on the Form. My surgeon and primary doctor both shrugged it off. That was more than eight months ago. Now I am doing that Hand Form almost daily. The point is that if you have an active, athletic, lifestyle then you will incur injuries. The ability to train around your injuries and to rehabilitate injuries is all inherently present in a traditional Tai Chi Hand Form.

Practical Tai Chi Chuan Everett

Legion Memorial Park, Everett, WA

They Used to Call it Mushroom Tea…(Kombucha)

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/kombuchas-fat-burning-potential-shown-in-study-5624161?utm_source=Bright&src_src=Bright&utm_campaign=bright-2024-04-18&src_cmp=bright-2024-04-18&utm_medium=email&est=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZeclexof6cXH76cBrGFQB7B70g0NKCSnEbNCpYIEkavKL7HjGfoZ

Practical Tai Chi Chuan Everett – The Tai Chi Bible

The Tai Chi Bible, written by Dan Docherty in 2014 is one of many books on Tai Chi Chuan and martial arts written by Dan.

The Forward:

Tai Chi is a paradox. Its image in the media and the general public is that it is some kind of moving meditation, a bit like yoga. It’s done slowly. It is easy to learn. It’s effortless. It’s about breathing. All of these images are partially accurate.

Tai Chi can involve holding static postures. There can be sharp and sudden movement. Tai Chi can involve the Chinese internal alchemy practices that influenced Kundalini yoga. Learning to do Tai Chi really well is neither easy nor effortless for most people. It’s about correct posture and smooth movement, which are the prerequisites for correct breathing.

Tai Chi is a highly effective system of self defense as it relies on skill and evasion, as demonstrated on pages 36-227. Concepts, drills and techniques used in Tai Chi self defense can be easily adopted by practitioners of other arts such as karate and judo and help improve their understanding and effectiveness. Sports people from soccer, golf, tennis, and other sports have told me how Tai Chi practice has raised their mental and physical game and improved their technique.

Tai Chi practice relaxes the body and improves the balance and coordination. This helps to prevent falls – the most common reason for the elderly to attend the Accident and Emergency Department in hospitals. Tai Chi practice also leads to better respiration and circulation. I have taught many asthmatics who were able to give up their inhalers after some weeks of daily practice. Regular Tai Chi practice helps with Type 2 Diabetes; my Tai Chi master had type 1, and it helped him too. Those who suffer from heart problems, arthritis and conditions such as Parkinson’s (I was diagnosed in 2011) can also benefit greatly from daily practice of Tai Chi.

Tai Chi is for all and it has a lot to offer as a the books shows. The question is simple. Firstly, find a suitable teacher and method; secondly, practice every day.

I wish you every success in Tai Chi.

Find out more about Tai Chi here: https://doctordilday.wordpress.com/everett-tai-chi-chuan/

Or here: https://www.everetttc.us

Practical Tai Chi Chuan Everett – A True Master

To have earned the title “Master” one must first have been a good student, but there must also be some natural talent. A good student listens, practices, tries hard, works hard, studies, and in other ways demonstrates commitment – over time. And one can not be a Master of anything without a good (or great) teacher (one or more). In the case of Chinese martial arts, a Master is also associated with a “school” and a lineage. This all implies a syllabus passed down from one generation to the next over time. A Master must demonstrate their skills and successfully compete against others of high caliber.

Paul Silfverstale has earned that title in the Hong Kong lineage of the Wu Style of Tai Chi Chuan over the past 40 years. Here is a biographical summary:

Paul Silfverstrale is a Swedish martial arts teacher, acupuncturist and natural movement mentor. After ten years of training in Kyokushinkai karate, he started practicing Wudang Practical Tai Chi Chuan in 1998 under the guidance of Sifu Dan Docherty. With Dan´s introduction, he resided and studied for several years in Malaysia and Singapore and trained with other masters of the Hong Kong Wu lineage. After 20 years of practice, Paul was appointed Level 9 – “Principal Instructor” in the style by Sifu Docherty. He expanded his experience under Bapak Wilhelm de Thouars’ in Kuntao Silat. He has won many Forms, Tuishou, and Sanshou tournaments, and has coached several champions including the Swedish national team. Paul is a professional teacher and travels all over Europe each year to sustain and develop the style of Wudang Practical Tai Chi Chuan together with fellow teachers and students. His approach is integrative and focussed on connecting the dots making them useful for each individual on the scope of movement health and martial training.

Practical Tai Chi Chuan Everett – Fight!

I once stopped a knife fight by side-stepping closer and changing the angle so that I was within striking distance. I knew then, and my opponent suspected, that I could hit him before he could get the knife out of the sheath (He had his hand on it and those were his intentions, but he hesitated). There was some de-escalation to do, but the fight was over: one person was knocked to the ground, but that was it.

Both my teacher and his teacher made their reputations by successfully competing against hard-style martial artists in full-contact tournaments in Southeast Asia. One defeated the three-time champion for the middleweight title; the other (my teacher) defeated the prior champion and went on to take the open-weight division as well. All of this was done to demonstrate that our Tai Chi is an effective martial art: in Hong Kong, others began to refer to my teacher’s teachers’ tai chi as “practical tai chi.” And my teacher later took on that name and added “International”. They were both tough guys.

I am not a tough guy and what fights I have had, were on the street. While I do know what it is like to hit someone hard enough to break bones (theirs), with either my right or left hand, It is the fights I have avoided, prevented, or stopped that I am most proud of. I teach self-defense.

And I teach self-defense as an extension of safety. Any reasonable and logical risk assessment will confirm that your odds of getting into a fistfight are dwarfed by dozens of other more likely threats. And that continuum from safety to personal security (self-defense) is much more about mindset, awareness, and being prepared than it is about how well you do two-minute rounds in the ring.

But, in the end, you do need skills. The question is, where will you get those skills and more importantly the ten thousand repetitions that truly allow you to have the skills become conditioned reflexes? And where are you going to get those skills (and repetitions) without a very high percentage chance that you will pick up significant injuries along the way? How many elderly people do you know who train in boxing, judo, or jujitsu? There are some, but not a lot. If you are a parent with a kid getting bullied at school, do you want them getting their head knocked around, their shoulders injured, or their risk of stroke later in life increased? Martial arts all have their predictable list of potential “sports injuries”.

I most recently used Tai Chi in self-defense when someone turned around without looking and would have walked over me, both of us falling to the ground. I used the Tai Chi technique, “Turn Body and Form of the Seven Stars” to avoid getting trampled and then to prevent my “opponent” from falling.

Some people get their kicks from sucker-punching strangers on the street, especially women. All kinds of craziness is on the rise nowadays, so it makes sense to develop skills and awareness. Surviving is a science as well as an art. The idea is to have the skills so you are not in fear; but the truth is that you are much more likely to have to defend against a broom stick falling out of a closet then you are a serious street encounter.

There are many places where you can learn some or all of what this article has been talking about, many good programs that I know of right here in the Everett area; Tai Chi also teaches it all. 

Find out more here: https://doctordilday.wordpress.com/everett-tai-chi-chuan/

Or here: https://www.everetttc.us

Practical Tai Chi Chuan Everett – Follow the Science

Tai Chi Chuan is the ancient Chinese system of exercise and self-defense based on the Taoist principles of yin and yang. While my teacher (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wudang_tai_chi#Dan_Docherty) and his teacher (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheng_Tin_Hung) mostly focused on the harder aspects and used their successes in competition against hard-style martial artists of various kinds to market their businesses, science has mostly focused on the benefits of the softer aspects of Tai Chi.

Whether it is depression, anxiety, immune support, PTSD, preventing falls, or a long list of other issues, Tai Chi consistently demonstrates results that are as good or better than the alternative (usually mainstream medical) approaches. One aspect or component (we call them “pillars”), the Hand Form, is essentially responsible for all of these benefits. And when most people think of Tai Chi, it is the Hand Form with its slow, qigong-like, movements that they are thinking of. And when I wrote recently (https://doctordilday.wordpress.com/2024/03/29/practical-tai-chi-chuan-how-is-your-progress/) about what could be achieved with only a 15-minute per day commitment it would be more accurate to say that with a 15-minute per day commitment  (doing the Hand Form essentially), you could maintain the benefits that produce the above results.

The traditional Tai Chi Chuan syllabus includes the hard and soft aspects and a wide range of other skills-building elements. When trained together the five components of Tai Chi Chuan complement each other and provide levels of integration and comprehension not possible when one trains only the Hand Form or only the very hard aspects. That is why it is referred to as “complete” in more ways than just as a martial art (I wrote about that here.) This training does take more time, more effort, and a teacher who can teach more of the syllabus.

In an increasingly more chaotic world, the ability to remain calm and to be aware and prepared without living in fear or perpetual hyper vigilance seems to me to have value. It is a feeble grasp we have on our mental health at the best of times; with Tai Chi, we have a way to maintain mental hygiene as well as physical fitness. We also have a strategic approach to dealing with “pressure” that helps us to respond in productive and safe ways, and not become a victim.

Learning Tai Chi is not like going to the typical exercise class where you just follow the instructor, and you can leave your thinking cap at home. The mental challenge is a major factor in stimulating your nervous system to adapt. Going home after class and practicing (correctly) what you learned in class is when and how you actually learn and attain the skills.

For myself, I realized the work involved. I did not want to do all of that work and not have real, transferable, self-defense skills. That is why I traveled thousands of miles on a 10-hour flight, to London, England, several times, to learn. And why we are bringing Paul Silfverstrale from Sweden next month to teach a 3-day workshop. If you ever thought you might want to try Tai Chi, this might be your opportunity. Find out more here: https://doctordilday.wordpress.com/everett-tai-chi-chuan/

Or here: https://www.everetttc.us

Functional Fitness – Then and Now

A favorite of mine from 2006.

 

“Functional Training” or “Functional Fitness” is the new term you will see in gyms and hear about in therapy clinics. So says Craig Liebenson, D.C., author of Rehabilitation of the Spine; A Practitioner’s Manual. He recently wrote an article about it in the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies (See JBMT (2006) 10, 159-162). This form of exercise uses weights, floor exercises, gym balls, balance boards, and pulleys or elastic bands to strengthen the “core” (of course) and produces stability. Dr. Liebenson says in his article that if your goal is to “carry grocery bags and babies, walk on uneven surfaces or even step off a curb you do not know is there without falling” this is the stuff for you.

Interestingly, there is a progression; actually it’s the same progression pretty much all rehab work follows. First master the form (or correct) performance of the motion; then do it daily at a moderate level; then do more daily. (The traditional progression stated another way is to first train the basic motion (which is really training the neurologic motor pattern), then train for stability, then for endurance, then for strength and finally for power.)

The photo accompanying Dr. Liebenson’s article shows a guy standing on the cross-over-a-plus-sign painted on the floor that rehab people are so found of these days. He is standing on one leg with the other off at an angle behind him, one arm kind of in front outstretched and the other kind of back outstretched: the text is about the guy doing some kind of motion. There are other similar pictures with a gym ball sandwiched between the guy and the wall, again one-legged stuff.

Fun enough I guess but I was instantly reminded of Tai Chi and of the last seminar I attended that was taught by Dr. Liebenson. He was joined by Dr. Stuart McGill, author of Low Back Disorders: Evidense based Prevention and Rehabilitation. Dr. McGill had taught the first day and was walking in a nearby park early in the morning on the second day of the seminar. I was in the park doing my tai chi hand form. He came over, asked if it was ok to watch (it was) and eventually asked to feel my trunk while I did some of the movements (it was). His comment after a few more minutes of watching? “It’s all there, isn’t it?”

How young is too young for Tai Chi?

It has been reported by respectable sources that Bruce Lee began doing our Style of Tai Chi at age five. He was a kid in Hong Kong. That is where our lineage was and is strongest. So it might be true.

In some of the gyms where I have taught Tai Chi, there was a 14-year-old minimum requirement.

So that probably sets the low end of the range. Being in your twenties or thirties would be ideal, I think, but it depends on how far you want to take it.

Check this out:

Whatever you do set yourself up for success. Gauge where you are, where you want to be, and the best first steps to get moving in that direction. Tai Chi may or may not be an answer to that.

Find out more here: https://doctordilday.wordpress.com/everett-tai-chi-chuan/

Or here: https://www.everetttc.us

Practical Tai Chi Chuan Everett – Who Should Not Do Tai Chi?

Well, here are a few examples of someone who should pass for now:

You have foot problems. Plantar fasciitis? Morton’s Neuroma? If you have trouble with your feet, knees, hips, or back, depending on the trouble, Tai Chi can either be the miracle cure, or it will set you back into a pain episode. Consult your health care expert and perhaps ease into it with Qigong, or some more personally tailored rehab exercise program.

If you can’t stand up and you can not stand on one leg, you may want to pass on Tai Chi. While Tai Chi can and is easily done by people of advanced age, starting Tai Chi at an advanced age is a sketchy business. That is something for a more personal, one-on-one, type of instruction, generally.

You can’t keep your balance, for whatever reason. Again, Tai Chi is excellent for balance training and unsurpassed at maintaining great balance, but if you are already having a lot of difficulty, then doing Tai Chi in a class or group setting is too risky, in my opinion. 

These are just the examples that come to mind right now and ones that we deal with often.

If you have questions, find a way to ask someone who knows something about it. You might start with the links below. If you do not like happy chemicals and don’t want to have any fun, then Tai Chi might not be for you.

Oh, speaking of that, I just thought of another group. Tai Chi involves touching and being touched. It is a safe environment, and all the tactile activities are carefully graduated: we are not going to throw you on the ground on your head on the first day. But not everyone is ready or okay with very much physical contact. If it is a problem for you for any reason, then personal instruction or sticking to the solo stuff is best. If, on the other hand, you know that you have issues in this area and you want a safe and practical way to develop a higher level of comfort interacting with people through touch, then Tai Chi is almost uniquely suited to that kind of work. Many, many people are starved for touch: that is not healthy. (On another touching note: it is best to show up clean and well-groomed for Tai Chi. Leave the jewelry at home, too, if you can, because it can also be a problem.)

Whatever you do set yourself up for success. Gauge where you are, where you want to be, and the best first steps to get moving in that direction. Tai Chi may or may not be an answer to that.

Find out more here: https://doctordilday.wordpress.com/everett-tai-chi-chuan/

Or here: https://www.everetttc.us