Keith Jeffery February 2009
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Tai Chi Decreases Falls
Another reason to keep practicing. Prevention! Maintaining great balance not only adds to your grace and coordination, it can save you a lot of grief. It can even save your life!
Below is a link to this study, but the bottom line is that just “one hour of tai chi a week for 16 weeks modestly decreases the rate of falls in community-dwelling elderly patients”. Reference: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17661956?dopt=Abstract
When we are young, a fall can be of little consequence. But a fall in the elderly can be a death sentence. Up to one in 4 seniors who breaks a hip from a fall is dead within a year.
Why? Balance is a complex issue that not only uses our eyes and parts of our brains, but also a myriad of receptors in our hips and feet. This complex system is supposed to keep us upright, but if not used a lot – it worsens over years and decades. As we age, we don’t realize that our balance has deteriorated and when we need it, it can fail us.
There is only one answer. The ONLY way to improve balance is to use it. Every day. Easy Tai Chi and 4 Minute Fitness are easy to learn and to practice. If you know one or both of these techniques, I encourage you to make a commitment to just a few minutes of daily practice. Both techniques will improve your balance as well as add so much more to your life. In fact – they might just save your life.
And remember – the slower you step into each movement, the more you will challenge and improve your balance. So step as slowly as you can while still staying safe.
And to make your balance even better – read our Practitioners’ Corner section (next) for ways to use Easy Tai Chi to further improve your balance.
Practitioners’ Corner
Ahhhh…. summer. Time to walk barefoot in the sand, enjoy the grass between your toes. Time to have your feet contact the earth. Or something like that.
Even if you are not a bare foot kind of person, I recommend finding a safe grassy or sandy area to practice your Easy Tai Chi. Losing the shoes during practice is another way for you to increase your balance (if you have are no medical reasons to prevent barefoot practice). By practicing barefoot, you will likely find your balance isn’t as good.
No problem – this lack of balance will force the smaller muscles of your feet to begin working to stabilize your body. This will fine tune your balance mechanisms, creating a longer term overall improvement in balance. As well, you will increase foot flexibility and increase the strength of those smaller muscles in your feet.
If you are ready to add more Easy Tai Chi movement to your life, try Easy Tai Chi CORE. These delightful movements can be done alone or as an add on to the Infinite Nine (your existing movements). www.EasyTaiChiCORE.com
Question period
From one of our students in South Africa. The Internet has certainly created global connection possibilities.
Q. Regarding the 4 Minute Fitness session, is there a preferred number of times that one should do each exercise? (I see on the DVD follow along part you do Ex 1 & 5, six times each and Ex. 2-4, three time each L&R). Are these the preferred numbers for each exercise? This is a bit of a silly question but I am curious about it.
A. Not a silly question at all. I usually try to provide relatively equal time to each movement, but will increase the repetitions of a particular exercise if I feel I need it at that moment. (My need at the time may be mental, like a need to feel more relaxed or grateful, or physical, like a need to stretch a particular area).
Try to be relatively consistent throughout the series, but do as many or as few as you like. Basically – make it work for you and your needs. And within reason – the more the better.
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