A workout for the
body, mind and spirit
Occupational therapist tells about the benefits of tai chi
By JESSICA KELLER
ARGUS OBSERVER
Sunday, December 30, 2007 2:56 AM PST
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| Sports and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation Clinic occupational therapist and tai chi teacher Kent Taucer (right) works through one of the beginning forms of tai chi with student and co-worker Pat Schwartz at the John J. Easly Gymnasium aerobics room last week. Taucer teaches a beginner to intermediate tai chi class offered at Treasure Valley Community College. |
ONTARIO - Having practiced tai chi chuan, or tai chi, for the past two and a half decades, Kent Taucer, Ontario, said he is well aware of its benefits.
Taucer, an occupational therapist at Sports and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation Clinic in Ontario, said he took up tai chi after sustaining an injury from a fall during a jiu jitsu match in his college days, which forced him into early retirement.
Not willing to give up martial arts all together, Taucer said at the time he was looking for another martial art or exercise he could participate in that wasn’t as physically demanding or violent.
Tai chi, it turns out, was the perfect solution for Taucer. Now, with his years of training he has the experience to teach tai chi.
“I’ve practiced for 25 years, and I thought that I’d start making that available to the local community if they’re interested,” Taucer said.
At the request of Treasure Valley Community College officials, Taucer agreed to teach a class, open to the community, at TVCC. Taucer has taught privately for the past seven years and began teaching tai chi at TVCC this year. The tai chi classes at TVCC, Taucer said, are introductory- or intermediate-level instruction. While there are many schools of tai chi taught, he teaches the Yang form of tai chi, or solo form. Although the tai chi classes are on break, they will begin when the quarter starts Jan. 7, and run from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays in the aerobics rooms at John J. Easly gymnasium.
Tai chi, Taucer said, is a “philosophy of health and life,” that stems from the Chinese belief in a “vital energy force” that permeates through everything.
“It’s a system of exercise and activity that can help develop more vitality in humans, in people, that comes from an understanding of the nature of yin and yang,” Taucer said.
He said in China people, young and old, practice tai chi on a daily basis in streets or in parks, “to gain health and focus in some form of serenity in their lives.”
Taucer said tai chi can be used as a martial art after several years of practice, and a weapons form of tai chi exists. However, the beginning stages of tai chi center around meditation, breathing and a free flow of “chi,” the energy force the Chinese believe runs through everything.
In addition to meditation and breathing exercises, designed to promote the free flow of chi, beginning tai chi students perform basic movements that improve balance and coordination, and again improve the flow of chi.
Physically, tai chi also has a lot of benefits, Taucer said.
He said, first of all, it is a good breathing exercise.
“You spend a lot of time learning to breathe properly, much like yoga,” he said.
The movements also promote better balance and coordination by teaching people to shift their center of gravity to correspond to their surrounding environments.
Taucer said the Journal of the American Medical Association printed a research study citing the benefits of tai chi for fall prevention among older people, and he has also seen that benefit as well.
“Since I am involved in rehabilitation, I can see a change in some of my patients,” he said.
Tai chi, Taucer said, targets a lot of a person’s lower extremities their legs, lower back, hips, “the weight-bearing muscles of your body,” through shifting weight while moving, rotating hips and balancing.
“It does it through slow and rhythmic movement,” he said.
Although advanced tai chi includes martial arts defensive combat training, tai chi can benefit anybody, Taucer said.
“You don’t have to be a super athlete or Bruce Lee in order to benefit from this,” he said.
People can practice tai-chi for a number of purposes and reasons, Taucer said: people with coordination or balance problems in their own home; someone who wants to get more fit without feeling like they have to compete; a person who wants to learn to focus their energy a little more; a person who is interested in chi and greater access to opening up chi centers for physical and mental health; a person who wants to learn effective ways to relax and deal with stress and stressful environments.
By practicing meditation and breathing, Taucer said, a person can help calm their mind down — or “tame the wild horse” as it is referred to in tai chi and yoga.
“I think that’s one of the greatest gifts we can get through the study of tai chi,” Taucer said.
Athletes can also benefit from tai chi, Taucer said, because their coordination and balance will improve as they learn how to rapidly move from one position to another. Taucer said some people at advanced levels of the hard martial arts take tai chi to open their chi flow and become more sensitive to their opponents’ chi flow.
While muscles get a major work out in tai chi practice, Taucer said a person can get quite an aerobic exercise in some of the higher tai chi forms, as they move from fast to slow movements or perform an entire form rapidly.
Not only is it good exercise, Taucer said there are few requirements to practice tai chi.
“If you can stand up and take a few steps, then you can benefit from tai chi,” Taucer said.
It also has no age limits, he said, adding the man who taught him tai chi — the abbot of a Buddhist temple in San Jose, Calif. — was 73 when Taucer first began.
In his classes, Taucer said, students learn and advance based on their individual ability. One of his former students in the TVCC class had previous experience in dance, and she learned the beginning tai chi forms and was able to advance to more difficult forms more quickly. Another student, an older lady in her 70s, however, worked on the more simple forms of tai chi. Taucer said the woman reported she was coordinated and her balance improved, as a result.
Taucer said anyone interested in enrolling in his class should contact Community Education Services at TVCC.
While he is not sure if enrollment is still taking place for the upcoming semester, people can still enroll after the semester begins.
All students need to attend class are loose clothes and a pair of tennis shoes, Taucer said.
