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Tai Chi
I routinely ask large audiences learning 4 Minute Fitness this question — how many people here have taken tai chi? In a room of 400 people, 100 people will raise their hands. I then ask — how many of you are still practicing? The answer? Perhaps two or three.
Sadly, something like 98% of all people who take tai chi classes will quit. These people initially signed up because they wanted benefits — perhaps increased flexibility, increased circulation, increased focus and concentration, reduced stress and increased relaxation, a sense of inner peace and quiet. Whatever the benefit they were wanting, most were not able to find it in traditional tai chi classes.
Unlike most new martial arts students, most beginning tai chi have no intention of working hard or studying that long. They are busy, stressed out people looking for answers. They simply want to learn a few techniques to improve the quality of their lives. Upon arriving to their classes, they are usually presented with a traditional tai chi approach that involves learning often hundreds of movements; an approach that ultimately leaves them confused, frustrated and more stressed than when they began.
As a traditionally trained tai chi instructor, I was part of the problem for close to 20 years. I watched hundreds of enthusiastic student become frustrated and quit. For the longest time, I blamed the students for their lack of dedication. I mean — if I could do it, couldn’t everyone else?
But gradually I realized the problem wasn’t with the student, it was with the teacher. I happen to remember patterns very well, and have a good understanding of my own body movements. Most people don’t start off with these abilities, and therefore find classes frustrating, and worse — humiliating.
I live in a small town and I often meet many of my students on the street or in a local store. I ask them how they were doing, how is their tai chi practice coming. More often than not they would say something like — I must be pretty stupid because I couldn’t remember the moves. Terrific. They started in my classes looking for benefits and left with a lowered self esteem.
In the mid 1990s, I realized that the traditional tai chi approach is often not appropriate in our busy modern society. I noticed that even the people who learned the hundreds of movements were completely focused on “getting to the end”. With that focus, they ended up doing the movements poorly, superficially — without any significant understanding. I’m sure that most martial arts instructors would rather have a student do one form superbly as compared to demonstrating dozens of sloppy forms.
One day I had three “aha” moments. The first one is that the essence of tai chi can be found in a single movement. The second — if everybody is so concerned about getting to the end, then make the end closer to the beginning. And lastly, I was sure that everybody could find five minutes in a day.
So I created a very short form which I called the Infinite Nine (infinite in that there are ways and means to extend the form into any time period). Nine traditional tai chi movements taught sorely rather than hundreds taught superficially.
I taught the Infinite Nine in a videotape (now a DVD) called Tai Chi for Busy People ( www.EasyTaiChi.com). It became a best seller, but most importantly, the comments from practitioners were fantastic. The absolutely loved it. Sure – there are lots of tai chi DVD’s out there, but most teach long, complex forms and in most – the instructor faces the camera, adding unnecessary difficulty as the student then must transpose all the moves.
So I thought, why stop here? Why not create a method that is incredibly short, delightfully easy and massively effective. Let’s make fundamental tai chi principles even easier and add principles from yoga, qigong, Western medical science, quantum physics, Cognitive Behavior Therapy and more. Thus 4 Minute Fitness was developed (www.4MinuteFitness.com). It started as a DVD, and has also evolved into a three-hour motivational health and wellness seminar that I present to thousands of people in businesses and organizations each year.
I had one final problem. I had developed a couple of techniques that were really effective and increasingly popular, but I was a lone voice living on an island in Canada. So the final “aha” happened and I created a Certification program (www.EasytaiChi.com/teachers.htm). This program is also designed for busy people and is all taught by distance learning, although many of the serious students attend out annual 4 day Easy Tai Chi Symposium to become Certified. Some have attended 5 -6 Symposiums.
My number one message? A few minutes a day of high quality movement and breathing can make a huge difference in your life! Just do it.
www.4MinuteFitness.com
www.EasyTaiChi.com
Weight Loss
www.Best-Weight.com
For more information, please contact
Dr. Keith Jeffery at:
1836 Douglas Crescent, Nanoose Bay, B.C. V9P 9C7
Toll free – (866) 682-4244 after 9 am Pacific
Tel (250) 468-9950
fax (250) 468-9910
E-mail: keith@EasyTaiChi.com