Physical therapist teaching Tai Chi?

[SPJ]

It was reported that a physician has arthritis for 10 years. He went to China and learned to practice Tai Chi.

Tai Chi helped his arthritis. So he went back to his country and started a Tai Chi research center.

There is a heated debate about the physical therapist teaching Tai Chi may do more harm than good.

One poster cited that he had to do standing practices for months for Yun Shou or cloud hands before getting all the moves right. If a Tai Chi novelist or newbie teaching patients Tai Chi without knowing all the ins and outs of correct body structure may actually detriment patients' health since they do not have the normal range of motions around all joints or spine alignment due to illness.

Even a healthy and normal or fit person may injure himself or herself when practicing Tai Chi without proper instructions from a qualified teacher.

Comments?

[SPJ]

The other related discussion is that one school of thoughts says no stretching in Tai Chi. If your tendons or ligaments are "loose", they are too soft to produce a stronger Jing.

Agreed or disagreed?

Comments?

[lkfmdc]

paging C Jurak, come in C Jurak, come in Jurak.......

[Royal Dragon]

Flexibility allows good transmission of power.

Tight chokes it off.

[Ford Prefect]

Actually the health benefit of tai chi is relaxation/stress relief combined with moving your joints slowly through large ranges of motion and stretching muscles. It's pretty simple.

[cam]

Jing/jin is not an important skill in taiji!
WTF!!!!!

[IronFist]

Hopefully a physical therapist will be familiar with how the body works and won't feed you any of this "move with your tendons" bulls.hit that you hear from so many kung fu/tai chi guys out there.

[KC Elbows]

So, if I want to help my grandma keep fit, just stick with muay thai?

[cam]

I can't see how you can develop any listening skills without first developing Peng Jing.
I've only been practising for 3 years, so what do I know..... I'm still trying to figure out Peng Jing!

[SPJ]

Peng is an outward Jing. Since you are doing circular moves all over your body, there will be Peng in just about everything you do or not do even standing still.

[SPJ]

Grandma or grandpa may practice 8 steps simplified Yang Tai Chi.

No Chen Tai Ji Lao Jia Er Lu cannon fist etc. There are a lot of jumps and leg sweeps.

I have injuries over the years. I had a lot of physical therapies, too.

The most recent one is on the right shoulder. I had to visit PT 3 times a week. I had warm pack, ultrasound for deep muscles, electric message for surface muscles. After a while, there are also hand massage. After 10 months, I had to start to use the muscles again by lifting weight from 1#, 5# and more.

-=--

[Ford Prefect]

Most people aren't looking for jing, fighting applications, or listenning skills. They just want something that will stretch their muscles, move their joints through a ROM, and the meditative, exotic aspect of it helps. If you gave them a routine of different joint circles, stretching, and meditation, then they'd scoff at it. If you say that they can learn the mystical, eastern combat art of health, then they'd jump at it. This guy doesn't sound like he is advertising himself as a tai chi fighting master. He just wants to help people be more healthy.

[Ford Prefect]

Let the psycho-analyzing begin. Boy, that penetrating and thought provoking analysis really cut the bone. I am humbled by your supreme analytical skills and how you can come to such an accurate conclusion based on some posts. That is truly amazing. And here I was thinking you were a one-trick pony with the vastness of your knowledge in relation to subscribing qi qong to physical therapy patients.