Taiji (tai chi) and qigong are ancient practices with a deserved reputation for beneficial effects including healing the mind and body, improving balance, fluidity, and flexibility, lowering blood pressure, ease the effects of PTSD, balance emotions and increasing happiness, improving posture, and boost your overall energy level.  Almost every taiji practitioner has such stories to tell.  The knowledge of taiji effects is based on ancient and modern tradition, personal experience of practitioners, common sense, and scientific studies.  Below follows the description of healing part of our class, for fighting part please click here.

 

Practice Focus

One focus of practice in our class is long foundational form, sometimes called Yang Lu Chan (YLC) form named after the founder of Yang style taiji.  Students start from learning the sequence of stances in the form.  Afterwards, they

1. Learn correct body alignments and movement mechanics
2. Develop balance, both stationary and while doing complex movements
3. Enhance breathing and synchronize breath with movement
4. Learn to generate and utilize qi energy
5. Practice fighting applications
6. Discover built-in self acupuncture sequences
7. Improve strength and flexibility as necessary to do the form well
8. Experience contrasts between relaxation and maximum physical effort, improving capability for both states    

Our foundational form has multiple layers of proficiency weaved in making it very exciting to learn and practice.

   

Heal with Qigong

Learning YLC form in-depth, with its multiples skill layers takes time, though benefits arise quite quickly.  In parallel, and also supporting this learning process, we teach multiple qigong sequences.The sequences are shorter and faster to learn.  Basic qigong shows beginner students how to breathe and coordinate the breathing with physical movements.  The sequences also include standing mediation which teaches correct alignments and visualizations, triple heater qigong, tapping qigong, swimming dragon, and much more.  We also teach a set of exercises designed to counter the bad posture we get by spending a lot of time sitting at a desk or playing with phones.

Other Sides of Taiji

Our "Taiji Boxing" class in BMAA blends both healing and fighting aspects of taiji, click here for description, including videos.  While a lot of taiji schools focus on healing only, the taiji system was designed to include both martial and healing aspects.  Including martial training as part of our practice helps students with increasing confidence and happiness, provides medium intensity cardio and strength workout, improves understanding of yin/yang interaction between relaxation and active work, and teaches self-defense skills that may come handy in some situations.  The learning is helped by written syllabus with supporting videos available to students.  The instructor is certified by World Taiji Boxing Association.