Tai Chi Adventures: Part #1 - Chen Style
Since my previous Facebook mini blogs all them months back i've had alot of requests to do more of them, so here it is, back by popular demand - the Worthy Mini blog series #2, enjoy, lol!
This time I will be focusing on one of my better ideas to fix my health problems and that is the Chinese art of 'Tai chi chuan'. I'm going to split these into 3-parts because i've done 3 different styles of Tai-Chi and I want to emphasize the difference between them.
For those who don't know, Tai Chi combines deep breathing and relaxation with slow and gentle movements, which is why my old GP suggested it to me after my frustration regarding the length of time my recovery is taking... However what you're about to read here is obviously not what she had in mind.
As you may have gathered by now, i'm not exactly brains of Britain and me knowing nothing about Tai Chi or where they do it, the first thing I did was search 'Tai Chi in Manchester' on Google and went to the first one I could find which was Jian Taiji back when it was at Van-Dangs in Manchester Picadilly.
At this point I did no research on the subject and I was going in with this image of "old ladies in a bingo hall", so you can imagine my suprise when I discovered Van-Dangs is a huge Martial Arts building and I walked into a room with a Thai boxing ring, punch bags and jig-saw puzzle mats. The first question I asked was "have I come to the right place?
Jian Tai Chi is Chen style and my instructor (or Sifu as he is referred to) started the introductions by telling us the story of how Chen style was invented and how it was used to defend Chen Village (see here for more info https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_style ). He then spoke about how he is a gold medalist in Wushu Tai Chi competition. At this point the whole "old ladies in a Bingo hall" image was long gone and I was beginning to question if this is suitable for my health, but luckily the instructor reassured me that "it'll be good for ya".
All 3 styles of Tai Chi that I've done starts with a warm-up and ends with some sort of cool down. All styles include Qi-gong (see here http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qigong ) and the Tai Chi 'dance like routines' known as forms, which in this case was the Chen style 24 form as demonstrated in this video here -https://youtu.be/pncVNFql0mk.
The dress code for Jian Tai Chi was 'loose fitting clothes and flat sole shoes' and the movements we did had names like 'cloud hands' and 'pounding mortar' to name a few.
This style of Tai Chi had alot of exercises and forms which included jumping and kicks with a heavily combat focused theme, so ofcourse I struggled alot to begin with because I was not prepared or expecting anything like this. Also for the first few weeks I was the only student, until an elderly lady joined us a several weeks later and she had the same problem I had because she too was expecting something like 'old ladies at a bingo hall'.
The instructor (aka Sifu) told us about what he planned to teach us in the future such as 'pushing competitions' and forms using weapons, but due to the low numbers, his Van-Dang classes closed 2 months later before any of that 'more extreme' stuff took place. Whilst I was gutted, this was kinda a relief for me because on the one hand it was good stress relief at such a stressful time in my life and I needed to improve my stamina alot, but unfortunately my health was at it's worse back then and I struggled with the more physical aspects to the point where the lesson plan was watered down to suit us (also I kept missing alot sessions due to my health at the time).
I enjoyed my first glimpse into the Tai Chi world and I did feel the benefits of it, plus people pointed out at the time how i've become more confident, so having decided not to follow Jian Tai Chi to Didsbury (or where ever they are these days), I looked for a Tai Chi closer to home...
...To see what that was, wait for part 2 on Monday. Until then, thanks for reading.
tai chi exercises
tai chi master
tai chi online ...
tai chi youtube
taoist tai chi
tai chi classes
tai chi centre
tai chi form
tai chi chen
yang tai chi
Since my previous Facebook mini blogs all them months back i've had alot of requests to do more of them, so here it is, back by popular demand - the Worthy Mini blog series #2, enjoy, lol!
This time I will be focusing on one of my better ideas to fix my health problems and that is the Chinese art of 'Tai chi chuan'. I'm going to split these into 3-parts because i've done 3 different styles of Tai-Chi and I want to emphasize the difference between them.
For those who don't know, Tai Chi combines deep breathing and relaxation with slow and gentle movements, which is why my old GP suggested it to me after my frustration regarding the length of time my recovery is taking... However what you're about to read here is obviously not what she had in mind.
As you may have gathered by now, i'm not exactly brains of Britain and me knowing nothing about Tai Chi or where they do it, the first thing I did was search 'Tai Chi in Manchester' on Google and went to the first one I could find which was Jian Taiji back when it was at Van-Dangs in Manchester Picadilly.
At this point I did no research on the subject and I was going in with this image of "old ladies in a bingo hall", so you can imagine my suprise when I discovered Van-Dangs is a huge Martial Arts building and I walked into a room with a Thai boxing ring, punch bags and jig-saw puzzle mats. The first question I asked was "have I come to the right place?
Jian Tai Chi is Chen style and my instructor (or Sifu as he is referred to) started the introductions by telling us the story of how Chen style was invented and how it was used to defend Chen Village (see here for more info https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_style ). He then spoke about how he is a gold medalist in Wushu Tai Chi competition. At this point the whole "old ladies in a Bingo hall" image was long gone and I was beginning to question if this is suitable for my health, but luckily the instructor reassured me that "it'll be good for ya".
All 3 styles of Tai Chi that I've done starts with a warm-up and ends with some sort of cool down. All styles include Qi-gong (see here http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qigong ) and the Tai Chi 'dance like routines' known as forms, which in this case was the Chen style 24 form as demonstrated in this video here -https://youtu.be/pncVNFql0mk.
The dress code for Jian Tai Chi was 'loose fitting clothes and flat sole shoes' and the movements we did had names like 'cloud hands' and 'pounding mortar' to name a few.
This style of Tai Chi had alot of exercises and forms which included jumping and kicks with a heavily combat focused theme, so ofcourse I struggled alot to begin with because I was not prepared or expecting anything like this. Also for the first few weeks I was the only student, until an elderly lady joined us a several weeks later and she had the same problem I had because she too was expecting something like 'old ladies at a bingo hall'.
The instructor (aka Sifu) told us about what he planned to teach us in the future such as 'pushing competitions' and forms using weapons, but due to the low numbers, his Van-Dang classes closed 2 months later before any of that 'more extreme' stuff took place. Whilst I was gutted, this was kinda a relief for me because on the one hand it was good stress relief at such a stressful time in my life and I needed to improve my stamina alot, but unfortunately my health was at it's worse back then and I struggled with the more physical aspects to the point where the lesson plan was watered down to suit us (also I kept missing alot sessions due to my health at the time).
I enjoyed my first glimpse into the Tai Chi world and I did feel the benefits of it, plus people pointed out at the time how i've become more confident, so having decided not to follow Jian Tai Chi to Didsbury (or where ever they are these days), I looked for a Tai Chi closer to home...
...To see what that was, wait for part 2 on Monday. Until then, thanks for reading.
tai chi exercises
tai chi master
tai chi online ...
tai chi youtube
taoist tai chi
tai chi classes
tai chi centre
tai chi form
tai chi chen
yang tai chi