“I first met Danny in Taichung, many years ago. I saw his flyer in a local restaurant advertising peace of mind and a comfortable body. I thought to myself, that sounds really good. I had always been athletic, but I was in my late 20s and was already starting to feel aches and pains and stiff from years of sports. When I started training with Danny, in his home in Taiwan, I initially started feeling stronger and like I had more wind. The rest is history. Now I teach martial arts in Austin, at Danny’s request, and am grateful every single day for the peace of mind and comfortable body I’m working on with my practice. If you’re in Taiwan and looking for peace of mind, a comfortable body and of course, self defense, then look Danny up.” –David True, Damazen T’ai Chi Studio teacher.
Besides bringing peace of mind and a comfortable body, Chi Kung and Tai Chi Chu’an could also become a part time or full time job. If you think you’ll be in Taiwan for at least 1.5 years and have the motivation to practice every day or two, you could easily gain skill sufficient to instruct T’ai Chi when you move back home. I will be in Taichung for 3 years, 2011-2013. I can assist you in getting formal recognition from the Taiwan Guo Shu Federation (Chinese Martial Arts Federation).
While in Taiwan I intend to develop my online Martial Arts Store. It will offer a wide range of good quality and reasonably priced goods: martial arts clothes like pants, shirts and jackets, meditation pillows, tea, tea sets, incense, and music… Ask for something and I will try to find it.
The study found that there are significant benefits of Tai Chi for individuals with all types of arthritis, including fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, said Leigh Callahan, PhD, lead author.
Sunday, Nov. 7, 2010
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – In the largest study to date of the Arthritis Foundation’s Tai Chi program, participants showed improvement in pain, fatigue, stiffness and sense of well-being.
Their ability to reach while maintaining balance also improved, said Leigh Callahan, PhD, the study’s lead author, associate professor in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and a member of UNC’s Thurston Arthritis Research Center.
“Our study shows that there are significant benefits of the Tai Chi course for individuals with all types of arthritis, including fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis,” Callahan said. “We found this in both rural and urban settings across a southeastern state and a northeastern state.”
Callahan will present these results on Monday, Nov. 8, at the annual scientific meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in Atlanta.
In the study, 354 participants were recruited from 20 sites in North Carolina and New Jersey. They were randomly assigned to two groups. The intervention group received the 8-week, twice-weekly Tai Chi course immediately while the other group was a delayed control group. All participants received baseline and 8-week follow-up evaluations, after which the control group also received the Tai Chi course.
To be eligible for study, participants had to have any type of self-reported, doctor-diagnosed arthritis, be 18 years old or older and able to move independently without assistance. However, they did not have to be able to perform Tai Chi standing. They were eligible for the study if they could perform Tai Chi seated, Callahan said.
Self-reports of pain, fatigue and stiffness and physical function performance measures were collected at baseline and at the eight-week evaluation. Participants were asked questions about their ability to perform activities of daily living, their overall general health and psychosocial measures such as their perceived helplessness and self-efficacy. The physical performance measures recorded were timed chair stands (which are a measure of lower extremity strength), gait speed (both normal and fast) and two measures of balance: a single leg stance and a reach test.
At the end of eight weeks the individuals who had received the intervention showed moderate improvements in pain, fatigue and stiffness. They also had an increased sense of well being, as measured by the psychosocial variables, and they had improved reach or balance, Callahan said.
Study co-authors, all from UNC, are statistician Jack Shreffler, PhD, Betsy Hackney, BS, Kathryn Martin, PhD, and medical student Brian Charnock, BS.
First, the good news: You probably won’t get cancer. That is, if you have a healthy lifestyle. “As many as 70 percent of known causes of cancers are avoidable and related to lifestyle,” says Thomas A. Sellers, PhD, associate director for cancer prevention and control at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. Diet, exercise, and avoidance of tobacco products are, of course, your first line of defense, but recent research has uncovered many small, surprising ways you can weave even more disease prevention into your everyday life. Try these novel strategies and your risk could dwindle even more.
1. Filter Your Tap Water
You’ll reduce your exposure to known or suspected carcinogens and hormone-disrupting chemicals. A new report from the President’s Cancer Panel on how to reduce exposure to carcinogens suggests that home-filtered tap water is a safer bet than bottled water, whose quality often is not higher—and in some cases is worse—than that of municipal sources, according to a study by the Environmental Working Group. (Consumer Reports’ top picks for faucet-mounted filters: Culligan, Pur Vertical, and the Brita OPFF-100.) Store water in stainless steel or glass to avoid chemical contaminants such as BPA that can leach from plastic bottles.
Bing: Cancer symptoms
2. Stop Topping Your Tank
So say the EPA and the President’s Cancer Panel: Pumping one last squirt of gas into your car after the nozzle clicks off can spill fuel and foil the pump’s vapor recovery system, designed to keep toxic chemicals such as cancer-causing benzene out of the air, where they can come in contact with your skin or get into your lungs.
3. Marinate Meat Before Grilling
Processed, charred, and well-done meats can contain cancer-causing heterocyclic amines, which form when meat is seared at high temperatures, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which get into food when it’s charcoal broiled. “The recommendation to cut down on grilled meat has really solid scientific evidence behind it,” says Cheryl Lyn Walker, PhD, a professor of carcinogenesis at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. If you do grill, add rosemary and thyme to your favorite marinade and soak meat for at least an hour before cooking. The antioxidant-rich spices can cut HCAs by as much as 87 percent, according to research at Kansas State University.
4. Caffeinate Every Day
Java lovers who drank 5 or more cups of caffeinated coffee a day had a 40 percent decreased risk of brain cancer, compared with people who drank the least in a 2010 British study. A 5-cup-a-day coffee habit reduces risks of cancers of the pharynx and mouth almost as much. Researchers credit the caffeine: Decaf had no comparable effect. But coffee was a more potent protector against these cancers than tea, which the British researchers said also offered protection against brain cancer.
5. Water Down Your Risks
Drinking plenty of water and other liquids may reduce the risk of bladder cancer by diluting the concentration of cancer-causing agents in urine and helping to f lush them through the bladder faster. Drink at least 8 cups of liquid a day, suggests the American Cancer Society.
6. Load Up On Really Green Greens
Next time you’re choosing salad fixings, reach for the darkest varieties. The chlorophyll that gives them their color is loaded with magnesium, which some large studies have found lowers the risk of colon cancer in women. “Magnesium affects signaling in cells, and without the right amount, cells may do things like divide and replicate when they shouldn’t,” says Walker. Just ½ cup of cooked spinach provides 75 mg of magnesium, 20 percent of the daily value.
7. Snack On Brazil Nuts
They’re a stellar source of selenium, an antioxidant that lowers the risk of bladder cancer in women, according to research from Dartmouth Medical School. Other studies have found that people with high blood levels of selenium have lower rates of dying of lung and colorectal cancers. Researchers think selenium not only protects cells from free radical damage but may enhance immune function and suppress formation of blood vessels that nourish tumors.
8. Burn Off This Breast Cancer Risk Factor
Moderate exercise such as brisk walking 2 hours a week cuts risk of breast cancer 18 percent. Regular workouts may lower your risks by helping you burn fat, which otherwise produces its own estrogen, a known contributor to cancer.
9. Ask Your Doc About Breast Density
Women whose mammograms have revealed breast density readings of 75 percent or more have a cancer risk 4 to 5 times higher than that of women with low density scores, according to recent research. One theory is that denser breasts result from higher levels of estrogen—making exercise particularly important (see previous item). “Shrinking your body fat also changes growth factors, signaling proteins such as adipokines and hormones like insulin in ways that tend to turn off cancer-promoting processes in cells,” Walker says.
10. Skip The Dry Cleaner
A solvent known as perc (short for perchloroethylene) that’s used in traditional dry cleaning may cause liver and kidney cancers and leukemia, according to an EPA finding backed in early 2010 by the National Academies of Science. The main dangers are to workers who handle chemicals or treated clothes using older machines, although experts have not concluded that consumers are also at increased cancer risk. Less toxic alternatives: Hand-wash clothes with mild soap and air-dry them, spot cleaning if necessary with white vinegar.
11. Head Off Cell Phone Risks
Use your cell phone only for short calls or texts, or use a hands-free device that keeps the phone—and the radio frequency energy it emits—away from your head. The point is more to preempt any risk than to protect against a proven danger: Evidence that cell phones increase brain cancer risk is “neither consistent nor conclusive,” says the President’s Cancer Panel report. But a number of review studies suggest there’s a link.
12. Block The Sun With Color
Choosing your outdoor outfit wisely may help protect against skin cancer, say Spanish scientists. In their research, blue and red fabrics offered significantly better protection against the sun’s UV rays than white and yellow ones did. Don’t forget to put on a hat: Though melanoma can appear anywhere on the body, it’s more common in areas the sun hits, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers have found that people with melanomas on the scalp or neck die at almost twice the rate of people with the cancer on other areas of the body.
13. Eat Clean Foods
The President’s Cancer Panel recommends buying meat free of antibiotics and added hormones, which are suspected of causing endocrine problems, including cancer. The report also advises that you purchase produce grown without pesticides or wash conventionally grown food thoroughly to remove residues. (The foods with the most pesticides: celery, peaches, strawberries, apples, and blueberries.) “At least 40 known carcinogens are found in pesticides and we should absolutely try to reduce exposure,” Sellers says.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday that up to a third of U.S. adults could have diabetes by 2050 if Americans continue to gain weight and avoid exercise.
The CDC said the numbers are certain to go up as the population gets older, but they will accelerate even more unless Americans change their behavior.
“We project that, over the next 40 years, the prevalence of total diabetes (diagnosed and undiagnosed) in the United States will increase from its current level of about one in 10 adults to between one in five and one in three adults in 2050,” the CDC’s James Boyle and colleagues wrote in their report.
“These are alarming numbers that show how critical it is to change the course of type-2 diabetes,” CDC diabetes expert Ann Albright said in a statement.
“Successful programs to improve lifestyle choices on healthy eating and physical activity must be made more widely available because the stakes are too high and the personal toll too devastating to fail.”
According to the CDC, about 24 million U.S. adults have diabetes now, most with type-2 diabetes linked with poor diet and lack of exercise.
Boyle’s team used census numbers and data on current diabetes cases to make models project a trend.
They said that no matter what, diabetes will become more common.
“These projected increases are largely attributable to the aging of the U.S. population, increasing numbers of members of higher-risk minority groups in the population, and people with diabetes living longer,” they wrote.
Diabetes was the seventh-leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2007, and it is the leading cause of new cases in blindness among adults under age 75, as well as kidney failure, and leg and foot amputations not caused by injury.
“Diabetes, costing the United States more than $174 billion per year in 2007, is expected to take an increasingly large financial toll in subsequent years,” Boyle’s team wrote.
David Kendall, chief scientific and medical officer of the American Diabetes Association, said that previous research has suggested that the financial burden may easily double in the next 20 years
“The financial burden is potentially a very, very troublesome one,” Kendall told USA Today.
Went to push hands in the park in Austin, today. A really nice group of people. Old and new friends. If you’re looking for Push Hands in Central Texas, check out Austin Pease Park push hands here.
Tai Chi the sport is a great one. Today I pushed with several people. Very different styles. Some teachers, all students! Very different attacks and counters. An excellent workout. Last weekend they had a visiting push hands teacher in town. I was away in Japan, but I heard it was good.
The object of stationary push hands is to push or pull to get the other person until they lift their foot. If they raise a foot then the other player gets a point.
The video above, is a stationary push hands video here, from Taiwan. Click here if you can’t see it. Notice how low they get, lowering center of balance to increase their root and make it harder for their opponent to push.
Another push hands allows contestants to move their feet and the goal is to use Tai Chi to push the other out of a circle. Moving push hands video here from a competition in Beijing in 2003. The video is below, or you can click this link if you can’t see it.
As you can see from these videos, moving push hands is far more than just a few old people in the park moving slowly! And while it’s hard to see the techniques in play, rooting and breaking your opponents root are fairly clear. In actual combat, the push is just one of the tools of the tai chi player.
Good Tai Chi fundamentals greatly aid one’s push hands practice: soft body, strong root, sit hip and elbow, listening.
Tai Chi is kung fu. Tai Chi is a martial art. Tai Chi teaches you how to use your power.
