Well, the title says it all. I want to know anything anyone is willing to tell me about the subject. I’d like to know the different types of Tai Chi and what is considered to be a reasonable price for lessons.
A friend of my sister is very involved with the Taoist Tai Chi Society of the United States. If I joined this organization and took the lessons, I would be expected to “donate” $30.00 per month, which I could reduce to $21.67 IF I pay for one year in advance.
I’ve lost a lot flexibility and I want to regain as much as I can. I also badly need something to do other than sit and brood about my marital/income situation.
Caveat: I have not actually taken lessons myself. But I’ve observed quite a bit (the school where I studied martial arts also taught Tai Chi).
First, assuming that rate ($30/month) includes at least a couple lessons per week, that is a VERY reasonable rate.
I would say that Tai Chi would be great if you want to work on:
balance (first and foremost)
coordination
relaxation
overall strengthening (not like “bulking up”, but working muscles you don’t use in everyday life)
memory
I would not say Tai Chi is all that focused on improving flexibility. You will get some improvement, but more in the balance than flexibility.
Tai Chi is a great form of exercise (billions of Chinese over hundreds of years can’t be wrong ! ;-). It can be very graceful, and is a LOT harder than it looks to do correctly. You don’t need any special equipment, and you can do it whereever there is enough space.
cormac262 has it right. The price sounds good to me, assuming a reasonable number of classes a month. I’d hope that you could attend a class once for free to check it out, and you might want to start with one month to see how you like it before committing to more.
Balance and relaxation are the main selling points of Tai Chi.
When I first took tai chi, my teacher focused quite a bit on stretches and taught some great ones. The school near me now doesn’t focus nearly so much on stretches, although they start with a few basic ones as a warmup. I think that’s going to be the more typical approach.
Yoga might likely be better for developing flexibility (I haven’t done it, but people I know who have are incredibly flexible), but I’m pretty happy with doing my own stretches outside of (or just prior to) Tai Chi class.
Having done six months of Tai Chi as a young man, and having lived in Hong Kong and watched it being practiced all over the place every morning (quite a lovely sight), I’d say the level of flexibility it promotes would be useful for the elderly, but not for people more able-bodied. For the latter, yoga or Pilates would be better.
However, it was good for me in terms of unlocking awareness of my body, making me aware of weight distribution and balance, and as an introduction to meditation.
Avoid this organization. I just checked out a couple pictures and videos, and their form is lousy. Taiji is one of those deals where you want as good a teacher as you can find, and these folks ain’t it.
If you’re looking for an exercise form that may be more easily accessible, you might want to consider Pilates, though lessons can be pricey. If you’re looking for instructors, try checking out the Pilates Method Alliance site; they should have a teacher listing.
I took a Tai Chi course through an extension of a local community college. The price was right. It was free. The course was done under a grant for senior citizens. But I didn’t have to be a senior citizen to join the class.
If you can find a community college or a senior citizen community center, you might want to inquire there about their classes. Many of them are free. And there are some really great classes given, from different kinds of art, to journal writing to finances and of course, exercise.
As to the Tai Chi itself, it was fun. It was amazingly difficult to remember the moves even after doing it repetitively over a long period. And concentrating on each move and making that move as clean as possible really took a lot of concentration, more than it seems from watching. But after a while, my mind did tend to wander and I got a little restless. So I stopped.
I stayed in the Friendship Hotel in Beijing a few years ago; my room overlooked what they called a beer garden that was used by various groups of people practicing Tai Chi in the mornings. It looked very graceful and very interesting; it really grabbed my interest.
took lessons for about 1.5 yrs. got bored with it though, cause every class was exactly the same. First we do the standard 24, then the standard 48 then Chen Man Ching’s 37, then the 88 (when there was time). I started out completely clueless, so at the beginning, the whole class was learning how to do the first couple of moves in the 24, etc. But towards the end, it was just the same.
The key for effective tai chi practice is “low and slow”. In other words, your stance should be low (deep knee bends) and you should move slowly. Its an amazing workout (if you don’t get bored).
I am only 35 now, but my knees got “crunchy” after about 1 year of doing it regularly. they still crunch, when I bend, when I straighten, it doesn’t matter. When the weather stinks, they hurt a little. Don’t know if its cause I did it wrong or what.
Started doing Kempo Karate recently. Its much more active and gets me one hell of a cardio workout. tai chi was never cardio, more muscle building (thighs especially, but calves also).
I read an article a while back about a study on Tai Chi practitioners in China having complaints about mild knee problems - I forget the ratio, but it was fairly high.
The idea I got from the article is that it’s fairly easy to do Tai Chi wrong, and that the knees are the first to suffer from improper methods.
The “low” part of “low and slow” might be part of the problem there. I have runner’s knee, but Tai Chi doesn’t give me any problems. I tend to not bend my knees much, and the teachers I’ve had don’t go very low at all either, except for a few of the motions. One of them frequently points out that he can “stand like this all day long”, when he is showing the basic stance.
When I was learning to do squats (strength training), I read that it’s important that the knees do not go further forward than perpendicular (actually the wording was different, but that’s how I remember it). After that, I noticed that my Tai Chi teachers seemed to follow the same rule, although they didn’t emphasize it in class, and many students would have some of their weight too far forward much of the time.
I remember reading about not extending the knees past the toes for optimal knee health (or whatever). but the teacher (who was a total nit-picker about proper form) told me to try and go lower all the time.
Oh well. Knees aren’t hurting today, and I still do the forms occasionally at a less damaging level.