Fitter at Eighty Than You Are Today

Chinese exercise is very different from Western exercise. Here in the West we don’t consider we’re doing exercise unless we’re struggling and straining, gasping and sweating. The aim is always harder, faster, more and more. We push our bodies to the maximum in the gym or pounding the streets but still we’re exhausted half the time and struggle with pain and limited mobility in older age.

This kind of exercise keeps us feeling good in our younger years but for older adults it can be damaging on the joints, the nerves the cardiovascular system and more.

In China exercise is very different. Exercise is still seen as a way of keeping you fit and healthy but the emphasis is on balance and not pushing yourself as hard as possible.

In Chinese exercise the aim is simply to move the body enough to keep the joints mobile, keep the energy flowing and delay the onset of aging. There is no need for special clothing or going to a gym or other special place. No real warm up or cool down and no need for a shower afterwards. The exercise is usually moderate. The obvious exceptions to this would be athletes and martial artists who do push their bodies to extraordinary degrees but in different ways than we do in the West.

Until modern times of course the average Chinese along with people all over the world used their body all the time. They were farmers, tradesmen or craftsmen. But these occupations often involved lots of repetitive movements or putting the body in bent over postures for long periods of time. So the exercise that they did was designed to restore balance to tense areas and mobility to tight ones.

Movement and exercise such as tai chi chuan and qigong have always been a key part of Traditional Chinese Medicine. A doctor would prescribe certain postures to stand in or exercises to do to restore mobility and guide the flow of energy through the body in the most effective way.

The Chinese have always understood the key to staying young is regular movement. Not just going to the gym a couple of times a week but movements that involve your whole body and doing them every single day. Without that your body just stiffens up again.

It’s not just the regularity of exercise that matters but how you do it. Regular attendees to my classes will know that even a small change in the way they hold their body makes a dramatic change to how their weight and other forces go through the posture.

Any movement or exercise that’s done well with a good posture will benefit you. Any movement or exercise that’s done without thought and with a poor posture can harm you.

Most Western exercise teachers have very little training in what constitutes good biomechanics. They push people into hard exercise with little idea of how those forces will travel through their body.

The Chinese have spent literally thousands of years studying posture, movement and exercise of all kinds. They understand how to move the body to gain maximum power with minimum effort. They know never to force the body but allow it to open up and strengthen in its own time. Time has a different meaning in China than it does in the West where we expect instant results.

Chinese exercise in general and tai chi in particular tends to include the following elements.

Structure – The way you hold your body so that every part connects to the part below all the way down into the earth. Any force acting on the structure gets directed down and doesn’t affect you physically or emotionally.

Focused movement – Learning to move the body in the most efficient ways by connecting parts together. In this way no single part takes too much of the forces acting on the body. You can absorb forces easily or produce awesome power with no apparent effort.

Breathing – Using a slow, soft and smooth breath to make the movements slower, softer and smoother. It releases tension and powers the energy system. It also helps maintain a calm mind.

Yin yang theory – Feeling the contrasts of light and heavy, expansion and contraction etc within the body. These contrasts produce a flow of energy. This energy vitalises the body, relaxes the muscles and opens the joints.

Wave power – Moving your body in a fluid way that creates a flow of power from feet to hands without stressing any individual part. It’s the way animals move and explains why they are more powerful yet don’t suffer the tightness and muscular problems we do.

One of the reasons for the popularity of tai chi is that it strengthens and mobilises the body no matter what age you start it. You could start at the age of 70 and be significantly stronger and more mobile when you hit 80 as long as you practiced regularly. In fact no matter what age you start the point of tai chi and other Chinese exercise is to enable you to maintain your health and vigour as you age.

Wouldn’t you like to learn an exercise that doesn’t damage your joints and can help you become stronger and fitter and stave off the not so inevitable effects of aging? If so then find a good tai chi class. They aren’t easy to find – look for one with a teacher who understands all the elements above and has been studying the art for at least a decade. Ignore the certificates to teach and ask about actual length of study.

I can absolutely assure you it’s worth it. You’ll learn to control your body in ways that virtually no Western exercise can. The feeling is amazing and will last the rest of your life.