Loving Life Fitness Podcast

#11 - Andrew Townsend

• Host Angela Grayson • Episode 11

Share episode

Andrew Townsend is a retired college professor and an instructor of taijiquan. He has been practicing taijiquan for thirty years and was certified as a Tai Chi Instructor by Grandmaster Jesse Tsao in 2005. Mr. Townsend became a disciple of Dr. Tsao in 2016. Under his teacher, he is a 13th generation lineage holder in the Chen family system of taijiquan. Andrew is the author of ten books on the art of taijiquan, including Tai Chi Essentials, The Tai Chi Teacher’s Handbook, and The Art of Taijiquan. 

Andrew is also a lifelong meditator and was certified as a teacher of Transcendental Meditation (TM) in 1975. He has also studied Vipassana meditation and Taoist meditation, and is the author of The Tao of Mindfulness.

Andrew and his wife, Deya, who appears in this and his other books on taijiquan, live and teach in Flager Beach, Florida. In addition to practicing and teaching taijiquan, qigong, and meditation, he is an avid surfer and a veteran traveler. He can be contacted via email at beachsidetaichi@gmail.com

https://www.facebook.com/beachside.taichi
Link to all 11 of Andrew's Book titles on Amazon

Made You Look Design
Podcast production and design services. We can help start your own podcast.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the show

Go to Loving Life Fitness to schedule Zoom fitness classes, personal training, or to request an interview to be a featured guest on this podcast.

Listen on your favorite Podcast Platform.
Remember to Subscribe, Like and Share! Your support is Appreciated!
Podcast Website
YouTube
Spotify
Google Podcasts
Amazon Music
SoundCloud
iHeartRadio
Deezer
Podbean
Intro music provided by Pixabay free content license created by AlexiAction

This is Angela Grayson from the Living Life Fitness Podcast. To help others in their fitness journey. It's All Possible! It’s time to wake up. Here we go. Hello, everybody. This is Angela Grayson, your host of the podcast Loving Life Fitness. Today we have with us Andrew Townsend, who is a Tai Chi instructor and also a published author of 11 books. So hello, Andy. How are you today? I'm doing just fine, Angela. Thank you for inviting me to join in the podcast today. I hope I can answer some of your questions and maybe provide some information for those individuals who are either beginning the practice of Tai Chi or considering beginning the practice. Yes, I know this is going to be a real interesting conversation that people are going to want to listen to. So many people are on the fence because they simply don't even know or understand what Tai Chi is. Let's go back to your beginnings, though, and where do you come from? Where did you go to school? Well, I was a Navy brat, so we moved all around. I was fortunate that my father got transferred to La Jolla, California, into something called the Top Gun School. You know that movie? Yeah. So he was there. And then long story short, I went to La Hoya High School, went to University of California at San Diego, which is on the cliffs above La Hoya, and then stayed in California. And I did various martial arts training as I was younger. I did karate when I was younger, and then I switched over to aikido because it suited me my personality, better. But even in Aikido, there's a lot of falling. It's like judo in that regard. And as you get older, it's more uncomfortable falling and hurting yourself. So I was fortunate when I was about 40 years old, I saw this guy doing Tai Chi. I recognized that I knew what it was. I saw this guy doing Tai Chi in a park and I said, I need to do that. And so at 40 years of age, I'm 73 now. I found a teacher to teach me Tai Chi. He wasn't very good as I came to realize later, but that was my beginning in the field of Tai Chi. And I've been practicing Tai Chi now for 33 years. And later I will talk about how I became certified as a teacher. But I was certified in 2005, so I'd been teaching Tai Chi for the past 18 years. Your career, though, after college, had nothing to do with Tai Chi. What did you do after you came out of college? What was your job? Well, that's an interesting question. So initially I was an accountant. Yeah, it's an interesting thing. And then the company I was working for, I couldn't get the kind of information I wanted to do, the reports I wanted. So this is in the day of punch cards. You may remember the punch cards and then the tape on the spools. So I went to our computer programmers and I said, Can you do this report for me? And they said, Yeah, submit a request. And maybe in three months we might get around to writing this, you know, report for you. And so I said, Well, how about if I teach myself how to write the program? Will you run it for me? And they said, Oh, sure, you write the program, we'll run it for you. So I taught myself computer programing, and this was probably back around 1978, 79, something like that. And then I became more and more proficient at writing computer programs for accounting. And then I quit my job as an accountant and became a computer programmer for contract programing for companies that needed specific accounting software written for that. And then I'll just finish up. So then at one point, I got hired to work directly for a computer company, a manufacturing company. And we like Apple back in the very early eighties, donated some computers to our local community college, and the college said, But we don't know anything about computers. Come teach us. So then I got a job as a community college professor, and that's really what I did for the majority of my career. What a range of careers there and how it turned around for you from one point to another. And I will tell you one other thing. Interesting. When I was a contract programmer developing these softwares, there was a program that came out. I'm sure you heard of that, although it's not around anymore. Lotus 1 2 3 . And so I learned how to use Lotus 1 2 3. And I could write scripted macros for people, so they would just load Lotus and they'd push this button and it would prompt them for information and do what they wanted. So I got a reputation in the San Diego area as Mr. Spreadsheet, and that was my nickname. And so anybody needed some specialized spreadsheet, they would call me and then a publishing house. Simon and Schuster, believe it or not, contacted me through a literary agent and said, Would you write a book on how to use Lotus 1 2 3, and from there I wrote a book on Lotus 1 2 3, a book on multi Plan, which is the precursor to what we now have is Microsoft Excel and Dbase and a few other books. So I actually became a published author way before I wrote books on Tai Chi, but I don't count those as part of my 11 books. So in addition to my 11 books on Tai Chi and meditation, I also way that people will come to me and say, I didn't realize you wrote a book on Lotus. One, two, three. You know that it's still there out there. There's warehouses that still have old books. And anyway, so another hour. Stop talking. Go ahead now. Okay. That's very interesting. Quite a history there. So how would you say that your mentors or where your inspiration came from to get involved in Tai Chi, Why did you go in that direction? I know you said you saw it in a park and you said, I have to start doing that. But was there anybody that influenced you, any mentors to go in that direction? The answer's no. Although later in the podcast, I will talk about my two Tai Chi teachers who taught me what I know and that I pass on today. But I was a surfer, and as I was getting older, I was feeling more clumsy on the surfboard. And so I said, I really and I've always admired surfers who were renowned for their gracefulness, people like Miki Dora and David Nuuhiwa. The anybody who was from my generation at service will know those names and Phil Edwards. So I said, I want to become more graceful. And so at the community college where I was teaching, they offered ballet. And since I was on staff, I could take any class I wanted for free. So signed up for ballet. At 40 years old as a man, I was the only man in the class full of 18 to 24 year old girls, beautiful, graceful girls doing ballet. And do you know anything about ballet? Not very much, no. Okay, well, there's different when you're in a ballet class. You know about barre work. You certainly know about barre work. So we do barre work and I was fine with that. But then we got to doing specific moves. And the move that I just couldn't do is this graceful gazelle like leap that goes across the stage called a jeté. And I just couldn't do it. Yeah, not this like an elephant, but there were like, these gazelles and I was so embarrassed I withdrew from the class. And so that was what inspired me. I knew that Tai Chi was graceful and I knew that it was done slowly. And this may interest some of your listeners because Tai Chi is slow. It's easier to learn, especially for older learners who sometimes have trouble following a Zumba class, for example, because some moves are too fast. So that's how I got into Tai Chi. Wow. Ballet and to Tai Chi, right? Well, failed ballet into Tai Chi. But yes. You're telling me all your secrets? Yeah. So your journey in fitness, you were a surfer and you said also that might be one of the reasons why you started taking up Tai Chi. How does that relate? Oh, that's an interesting question. And actually, Deya my wife and I went in June to study with our teacher, Grandmaster Tsao. And it's funny because when I went to San Diego, I was connected with a number of my old friends from San Diego, and a couple of times I was late for his summer camp because I was out surfing. And so, you know, to Grandmaster Tsao, that's an insult. You're supposed to be there on time. And so he kind of busted me. I came in one time late and he said, okay, So I like me to tell everybody in the group why how Tai Chi and surfing are related. And so I gave a little ten minute talk about Tai Chi and surfing. So obviously one thing about surfing to surf, well, you have to have good balance to do Tai Chi. You have to have good balance. And we'll return to this subject a little bit later. But many older individuals take up Tai Chi because they're either told to do so by their doctor or they've heard it's good for balance. And so obviously when you're on the way, the board moving with the surface of the water is constantly turning, shifting. And so you have to adjust your balance. So surfing aids in the practice of Tai Chi and Tai Chi aids in the practice of surfing. Yes, that. I know that you do both of those till today and paddleboarding also. So yes, you do. They go hand in hand. One helps you get better in the other. Exactly. Maybe we'll get some surfers to start taking some Tai Chi. One surfer right now, he's about the age I was when I started. And, you know, he's already noted that his coordination and his balance has improved in surfing a little bit. What has Tai Chi done for your emotional and mental fitness? Well, now, this is interesting because I started meditating when I was 19, and so I'm very familiar with meditation and I've actually studied various different types of meditation, transcendental meditation, Vipassana meditation, which is a Buddhist style of meditation, and also the Chinese type of meditation which comes from Taoism. So I have a lot of background in meditation. It turns out that when you do Tai Chi correctly, especially with I don't want to say controlling, but managing your breathing correctly, that it induces within you the same kind of mental state that you would get in seated meditation with your eyes closed and you may have heard Tai Chi referred to as moving meditation. Tai Chi is oftentimes you try to as a form of moving meditation and for your listeners who may be wanting to take up Tai Chi as a form of stress management. Tai Chi is just about as effective as seated meditation. And as you know, there's some people who just can't sit and meditate. It's because of what we call the monkey mind. You know, their mind is just too active. It's hard for them to sit and calm the mind breathing or repeating a mantra or using any number meditation techniques. But Tai Chi, because you're actively with your eyes open, you're moving, you're looking around, but still you can lower your breath rate, you can lower your heart rate, you can change your brainwave pattern to essentially be equal to sitting in meditation, especially when people first start a meditation practice, it seems impossible. You can even sit there for a minute to try to focus on your breath, to focus on a flame. You know, you feel silly because your mind is all over the place. And naturally all of our minds wander. That's what our minds do. So to be in your Tai Chi practice and focusing on that and nothing else, I can see how the meditation just goes hand in hand with that. Exactly. So I don't want to say that people shouldn’t meditate, but I will say that Tai Chi can be a gateway into meditation. Over the course of six months to a year, your mind will naturally learn how to calm itself down and then you might at that point say, Hey, I think I might be able to sit and meditate for five or 10 minutes. So this is another way. I just had a woman come to me. She had been studying Tai Chi with another person and she attended one of my classes and immediately she said, This is that Tai Chi I've been looking for because she felt for the first time that calmness and relaxation that she hadn't gotten from the other teacher. This is unfortunate, but there is there's different calibers of Tai Chi teachers. And so there's a lot of teachers who have studied Tai Chi for one or two years and they go off and attend a weekend course. You see this in yoga too. They go up and that's the weekend course and they get a very superficial level of certification. And then they're teaching at the local YMCA or the community center. Tai Chi is a very, very deep, deep practice. There's many levels to Tai Chi and so unfortunately, many people just get the most superficial level of instruction because their teacher, it has a very shallow level of knowledge and experience. So because I've been practicing for more than three decades and teaching for almost two decades, my depth of knowledge is such that I can convey to each individual what they need to know at that time and take them deeper into the practice. And that's when they start to really appreciate what's going on. Let me ask you, where did you get your education certifications in Tai Chi? Where did you study? I know you've said before you went to California. So initially I wanted to learn Tai Chi and I found a guy who was teaching in a health club and I said, I want to learn Tai Chi, but I don't want to learn what you're teaching because I saw it. It was too superficial. I had seen some videos. I knew what Tai Chi was really like, So he agreed to teach me privately and I studied with him for about six months. But at the same time I was doing research. We didn't really have the internet, but you could get Tai Chi videos, you know, from catalogs. And I was reading a number of books and I realized that what this man knew was very limited like I had just previously said. So I was able to find another individual who was a national champion in Tai Chi. His name was Chris Luth and this was probably back around 1985, I'm guessing something like that. He was very good and he had learned from a Chinese master. And so I will tell your listeners, if at all possible, either studied directly from a Chinese master or if you can't find a teacher who studied with a Chinese master, don't know more than one generation away from a true Chinese master because it just gets too diluted. So I studied with Chris Luth for a while and then it turned out I went on a vacation to Hawaii for a summer because I was a college professor. I could take summers off and I met my first Chinese teacher in Honolulu. Master Quang And Master Quang himself had studied them a very famous grand master, Professor Cheng Man Ching and he taught me one on one three times a week for three months. And it was a very deep and profound experience. And so I came home from studying with Master Quang, He actually asked me to quit my job and move to Hawaii and become his disciple, but I just couldn't afford it. So I came back and I was looking around. I knew from that point on, no more white people. I'm only going to study with Chinese people, Chinese masters. I know that sounds a bit presumptuous, but so then I found, fortunately, Grandmaster Tsao had just moved to San Diego. He had been working in Phoenix and he moved to San Diego. Long story short, he was very high level, even higher level than Master Quang. And so I went to a class with him and then one class I bowed to him and said, You're you're my master. And so I had been studying with Grand Master Tsao for gosh, since maybe 88 or something like that. And yeah, he's my he's my teacher. And a few years ago, first of all, he granted me discipleship, so I became one of his disciples and then he bestowed upon me the title of Master. So I don't use this term because I like to be informal with my students, but technically I am a Tai Chi master within a lineage that goes back till around 1650, something like that. And unbroken lineage of master to disciple, Master to deciple. So this is probably something you did not know about. No, I did not. That's quite an education. You received there. Yes. Let's talk about history, the history of Tai Chi. So you'll notice that I referred to going back to about the 1650 roughly that era. And I've written about this in several of my books. So some people think that Tai Chi has been around for thousands of years, and this is not correct. The idea of Taoism has been around for thousands of years, 2500 years roughly since the Tao Te Ching was written by Lao Tzu. Lao Tzu and subsequent masters like Guangzhou taught about the balance at Yin and Yang, and that when yin and yang are together mutually, they form what we refer to as Tai Chi. So Tai Chi really just means the harmonious interplay between the forces at the end and the forces of Yang. Okay, now fast forward to about 1600. There's a family who had been practicing Shaolin martial arts because their village was very close to the Shaolin Temple, and that family was called the Chen family. And then Master Chen Man Ching, he started learning about Taosim and he interacted with some Taoist monks and he incorporated the concepts of Taosim, especially yin and yang, soft and hard into his martial art and that was when Tai Chi chuan, which means Tai Chi fighting style or Tai Chi fist was developed. Then Tai Chi was held closely within that family for a number of generations, about five generations. And these people learn to fight. They use soft techniques, alternating with hard techniques to fight, and they worked as palace guards and mercenaries and so forth. And they didn't want anyone else to know their secret because it was such an effective style of fighting. If they taught it publicly, other people would learn and then maybe they could be defeated by the people. Now, this has always been the case in Chinese martial arts. At some point they did accept one individual from outside their family who learned their skills and then left and made further modifications. And this became known as Yang style Tai Chi. Yang style Tai Chi is the Tai Chi that almost everybody in the world practices. Although there's still a lot of people practicing Chan style, the most common Tai Chi that you'll see when you see people practicing in the park is this slow, very graceful fluid type of Tai Chi, and that's based on the Yang family's Tai Chi. Chen style Tai Chi I know your listeners can't see me, but Chen style Tai Chi has very fast punches and kicks and jumps and drops down to low positions that really are only suited for younger people. But there are still, of course, people worldwide who practice Chen style Tai Chi, and that is the main source of Tai Chi from which other family styles, including Yang style, Sun style, Wu style, Hao style all originated and I am a master of four of the main five main styles. So again, it's not just this guy living nextdoor, who goes out on his patio and does Tai Chi. There's more to my background. Yes, everybody I get to watch Andy do Tai Chi on his back patio and it's the most beautiful art form. Yes, I told him if he ever sees me out there staring at him. Don't think anything crazy. It's just beautiful. Thank you. And, you know, because you see, this traditional Tai Chi is not only done with the empty hands, the beautiful flowing hands, but it's also done with a variety of weapons. So there's a Tai Chi straight sword. There's a Tai Chi curved sword called the saber Tai Chi spear Tai Chi fan, Tai Chi pole that's like ten feet long, And these are all traditional weapons that more advanced practitioners of Tai Chi will also learn mostly to honor the martial tradition of Tai Chi. Was Tai Chi ever outlawed in China? The answer is yes. It absolutely was. And this is an interesting, interesting thing. It was outlawed several times. All martial arts were outlawed when The Manchurian’s took over because they didn't want people fighting. So when The Manchurian came into China, they breached the The Great Wall of China and came in and they took over Beijing, Peking at that time and became known as emperors, because it doesn't matter what if you are a humble man who grew up on the steps of Mongolia and led an army, by the time you captured Peking you are an emperor. You know that's just the way things work. So Tai Chi was outlawed then, and then it was allowed to come back in the 1700s and 1800s. But then when the Chinese government took over, especially during the Cultural Revolution, once again Tai Chi was banned because it was anything having to do with traditional China was banned. And so all these Chinese Tai Chi masters had had to basically they were either imprisoned or they had to go work in the fields and they could only practice late at night. And one specific master, very well known, he was jailed. He was in a small cell, let's just say, you know, six feet by six feet. He had to learn how to practice within a space of 60 when we are in a restricted space ourselves doing Tai Chi like in a hotel room, we do what's called a jail cell, Tai Chi. So we'll do a few moves and then we'll step back and gracefully move into another sequence. So it's interesting, your question about was it outlawed? It's been outlawed several times. So we're very fortunate to still have this art form with us. With it being outlawed so many times. You're a 100% right now. This is very interesting because my present teacher, Grandmaster Tsao, he didn't go through the Cultural Revolution, but his teacher did. In fact, the Chen family is still represented by five tigers. They're old now, they're my age or older, but during the Cultural Revolution, they had to hide and practice their art at night and away from prying eyes. But they those five gentlemen, maintained Tai Chi and were able to bring it out when it was allowed to be out again. Now, here's something interesting. Now, in China, Tai Chi is considered to be a national treasure and the humble, humble Chan Village is now a metropolis with dozens of schools. Tens of thousands of people are there at any given time from all over the world studying Tai Chi. And those five tigers are national heroes now for maintaining that art during the Cultural Revolution. What a great story. Have you ever been there? I went to China with our teacher, but earlier on you heard me refer to the fact that Chen Lang Ching also studied with some Taoist masters. And so on our trip, instead of going to Chen Village, we went to Woo Dong Mountain, which is the home of Taosim. So I have photos of Deya and me practicing in these beautiful mountain inns with these gorgeous Taoist temples. It was a wonderful experience. And then we did travel around China to some other places and studied with some of other grandmasters on that two way trip. What an impact that must have had on your practice in your career physically, mentally, emotionally? Absolutely it did. And it's so unfortunate because with the current relationship between the United States and China, there are people going to China now. But to be honest with you, I don't feel comfortable going to China now at any time. Something could happen and you could be held as a hostage there. So I would love to go back to China, but not until relations between our two countries become more amenable, let's say. But yes, in this a beautiful place and the Chinese people themselves, it's so frustrating, you know, how government are different than the people of any country. The government of China right now is being pretty strict with the current Xi Jinping or whatever his name is. But the people are so kind and friendly. You know, it's it's just like everywhere. You can't judge a country by its government. You have to really know the people and they're lovely people. That's wonderful. You got to experience that. Their culture, the people. Yes. And have a great take away. Maybe one day you'll get to go back. I do hope that we can go back. Fingers crossed. Yeah, you didn't. My teacher. Was it my teacher who? I think he has dual citizenship. He will go back right now and his Chinese buddy won't go back. He. So let's talk about somebody who is new to the Tai Chi art form. What kind of improvements can you expect to see practicing and how long does it usually take? How much of a commitment does it take to start? I think I really like the second part of your question because first off, let's talk about the benefits and then we'll come back and talk about what it takes in order to receive those benefits. So essentially, you can learn Tai Chi from one of three perspectives health, personal cultivation, practicing it as an art and martial arts. So the vast majority of people who take up Tai Chi, especially older learners, are taking it up for some specific health benefit. They may be taking it up because their balance is beginning a little wobbly, so they walk, temporaries their balance. They may have high blood pressure, a number of medical conditions by which diabetes, for example, and their health practitioner is telling them that they should do Tai Chi, some people, as you know, they can't really do yoga for whatever reason that we won't get into the reasons. But some people yoga is just not suitable. Clearly things like aerobics and Zumba are not suitable for a lot of older individuals is so Tai Chi because it moves slowly is a way for people to start moving and shifting their weight any time you stand on one leg, any of your one legged yoga poses like tree pose, the weight bearing leg, the bones are being told, Hey, you need to get strong. And so they'll draw calcium in the bones. Well, in Tai Chi, even though there are some single leg postures, but simply moving slowly, one leg is bearing weight longer than you would in normal block. So we have all these benefits. I know that this is only a verbal, but I have this thing called the Harvard Medical School Guide to Tai Chi. And anybody who is interested in taking up Tai Chi for help should obtain a copy of this. And it talks about all the many different medical conditions that are addressed by Tai Chi, but certainly one of the most significant is fall prevention. So the YMCA, what I used to teach at the YMCA, had a program called Moving for a Better Balance, which was basically just Tai Chi. Now let's come to the second part of your question. The subtitle of this book is 12 Weeks to a Healthy Body, Strong Heart and Sharp Mind. So my wife, Deya who also teaches Tai Chi, tells new students she said, Don't expect a miracle. They'll come to one class and think, Oh, my balance is better. I've lowered my cortisol levels. You know, my agency has gone down. No, you have to do Tai Chi minimum three times a week, but 12 weeks just to start to see these benefits and I think you would agree it's the same with yoga, right? You can't just come to a yoga class and all of a sudden my heart rate's lower now. And what I tell people is realistically, so 12 weeks after three months, I tell people to give it up for six months before they're going to see major changes in their body. But what then that you can start to feel pretty much right away is the electrical feeling of the chi moving through the body. So I focus on helping people to move in a way that allows the chi to reach their palms in their fingers and usually within one or two sessions I'll get people to start feeling their chi. Once you start feeling your chi, you realize, Hey, there's something there that I never knew was there before. It's so cool that a lot of people will just continue just for that reason alone to get the feeling of chi moving through the body. They can't wait to come back and continue. Exactly. So today, for example, I had a new woman come to my class. So I had them do a very specific exercise where they held their hands apart about as wide apart as maybe a volleyball. And I had them doing some breathing and then I said, No, I want you to, because they could feel the chi going out to the fingers. And I said, Now I want you to project your chi from the right palm to your left arm. And then the lady, everyone's doing all the shit. Oh, my God, I feel it. And it was so wonderful. You know, she had a breakthrough. I know she'll continue studying Tai Chi with me. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And I was reading about all the improvements, and I'd like to just say what I have here. You've already said improvements that you can expect to see practicing Tai Chi, just like you said, done daily after 12 weeks. This has to do with the mind to switch between tasks easily. You had more activity in the prefrontal cortex responsible for higher thinking skills? Yes, improved cognition because of the increased blood flow to the brain, which strengthens the hippocampus, which is critical for memory and cognitive function. So that right there is. Wow, amazing. And we're not even talking about improving strength, flexibility, balance, lowering blood pressure, prevent falls, helps people with arthritis, and also helps with emotional and mental things going on, which we all have that in our lives at some point or another. You're correct. Now, many of the benefits of Tai Chi have to do with lowering overall stress levels. So if you have high blood pressure and you can lower your stress level, obviously then you're going to lower your blood pressure. Other aspects of Tai Chi have to do, as you mentioned, with improved circulation. Now, here's the interesting thing. Why does circulation improve through the practice of this slow, obviously, non aerobic activity? And here's the truth that any practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine knows in China, they say that chi and the blood are like big brother and little sister. So wherever the big brother goes, the little sister follows along behind. I know that's a rather chauvinistic point of view, but China's a very chauvinist society. So wherever that chi goes, the blood follows. So as you're chi gets stronger and is able to move fully throughout the body to penetrate all the tissues, it actually draws the blood behind it. And so this is where you're getting increase blood circulation, our blood flow to the brain, because when you do Tai Chi, your chi not only goes to your fingers and your feet, it goes to the head as well. It goes to all the extremities of the body, including the head. And so we get greater chi flow to the brain, results in increased blood circulation to the brain. And then, like you said, the hippocampus is stimulated and, you know, improves memory because the hippocampus is related to memory and then cognitive ability, good information there. Also, somebody who's new to Tai Chi would you say it's going to group class or individual training? Well, let's be honest, as a yoga teacher, you know, one on one, you can make more corrections to the person since they're your only student, you can observe when they're not getting into postures correctly, when there may be running the risk of injuring themselves because they're don't have their knees lined up properly with their foot. Clearly you're going to get better instruction one on one. However, you can go to a group class as long as the class is not huge. My recommendation is try to find in that group class that has no more than 10 to 12 students in it. And certainly, if at all possible, find a teacher who is teacher or was a master, a Chinese master. Okay. Don't go to somebody who is studying with Jane Doe and then Jane Doe study with Jack Smith. And Jack Smith might have studied with a Chinese person. And then the teacher you're going into has been doing it for two years and went to a weekend course and got certified. You're not going to get the benefits of Tai Chi studying from teachers without a a sufficient lead. Deep understanding of Tai Chi. Oh, find a good teacher now. You said talking about books. Among the books that I have written on Tai one is called The Tai Chi Teacher's Handbook. And in that book I give a lot of advice based upon my own background to budding Tai Chi teachers. And one of the things I see in that book is realistically, you shouldn't attempt to teach Tai Chi until you've been practicing at least five years and have been certified. Do a good Tai Chi certification program. Like most yoga certification in the minimum is like 300 hours is at 200, 200. Okay, so my teacher, he offers certificate nation. I was one of the first people he certified and he just certified me based upon his knowledge of me. He didn't Anybody who wants to get certified through my teacher who has a certification program has to have 300 hours of training. I could see where that would make a lot of sense. Yeah. And very few Thai teachers have that depth of background. How long does it usually take a new student to learn a sequence? This is a wonderful question, and it's something that Deya and I and many teachers deal with. So I teach three levels. The first level for beginners, the form consists of eight different postures that are performed in a continuous choreography, and it's called the Tai Chi eight form. Most students can learn that Tai Chi eight form in a biweekly class in three months. I normally ask my students to repeat that class before going on, so I ask them to stay with the Tai Chi eight form for six months and then they can go into my intermediate class where the form that they learn is called the 24 form. And as the name implies, there's 24 postures. So instead of an eight posture form, it's now a 24 posture form and that takes roughly six months to learn, but only after they've already been doing six months. So after a year of dedicated study, then they may choose to go on to my advanced group. And the advanced form has 85 movements and 85 postures to perform arm. That arm at the correct speed takes about 18 minutes to learn that form. Realistically, if you learn the eight form and the 24 form first, then that takes an additional year. So to move through the curriculum is two years. That's going to class twice a week and practicing on your own at least another couple of times. Yeah, and you definitely suggest going through the steps to get better. Not necessarily self people. They're happy to learn the art form and that's all they want to do. Okay. And then there's other people that feel that they really achieved a major accomplishment by learning the 24 form And they probably won't go on. So really, it's only the people who are serious about Tai Chi who will go on and study what we call the long form, the 85 posture form. Yes. And then and then if you're really serious in you go, Well, that's cool. And then I want to learn the sword, I want to learn the spear. I want to learn that beautiful fan, you know what I'm saying? And so as long as you want to keep learning, there will be more things to learn. I'm still learning new stuff. Very good. Before we conclude, I do want to mention one thing just briefly, very closely related to the practice of Tai Chi is something called Qi Gong. You've heard of Qi Gong? Yeah. And that would be an entirely different podcast. You might want to get a different presenter. I know some people who are specialized in qigong, but qigong is softer even than Tai Chi and it focus more. You don't step around very much and qigong normally just stand in one place and you do these various movements over and over again and it's purpose gong comes from like kung fu, and kung fu just means dedicated work. So qigong is dedicated work to promote your chi. Now, a lot of Tai Chi teachers, myself included, also incorporate Qigong into their classes because as I mentioned previously, many of the benefits that are the health benefits come from the increased circulation of the chi, which then improves blood circulation. So people who are going to study Tai Chi ideally will find the Tai Chi teacher who also includes Qigong as part of their regular curricula. So just for your listeners, don't ignore Qigong if you're interested in Tai Chi. Find someone who will teach you about Tai Chi and check out your no more options. Great. Yes. Good. The ideas for your book. You've written quite a few books. How do you keep getting these ideas for your next book? Is there a flow that you want to continue with? That's a good question. So the first book that I wrote was at the request of one of my private students, and she said, You're giving me all this information, but I can't remember it. Can you write it down? And so I said, okay, I'll write it down. And then I said, Well, crap, there's a lot of people who would want to know this. I'm going to put it into a book. So that became my first book called Tai Chi Essentials. And then I only put a smattering of what I know into that book. So I said, Now I'm going to write a book for more advanced students. And I wrote that book and I included a lot of Qigong knowledge in that book. And then I realized that I still needed to see more about the Tai Chi that's done on hands. We call that empty hand Tai Chi. So I wrote a book and I envisioned at that time that I would write a book about the empty hand, the weapons and the two person interaction. Sometimes you'll see me playing with someone in the backyard, tossing them around as washing hands. But that book actually expanded into a five volume series because I knew. I needed to add some additional step into the series. So that took me five years. And then I wrote another couple of book like the Tai Chi Teacher's Handbook. That was a book I wrote. I wrote a book on mindfulness practice. I gave you a copy of that book, and I still look probably to download mindfulness and now working on yet another book, because this is a subject that's very fascinating to me right now. It's called The Wu Wei, The Art of Doing Nothing, but not just sitting around doing nothing, doing nothing in such a way that you accomplish everything you need to do. This is a very traditional Taoist perspective, essentially surrendering yourself to the flow of nature and just acting in accordance with nature a lot. And then you're still acting, but it feels like you're not acting. This came to me. I don't remember exactly where, but it came to me. I was starting to do way more and more myself. And so I said, I'm going to write a book about this. Very good. And you're working on that now? I'm on that now. I hope to have it available by Christmas of next of this year. Actually. Nothing to look forward to. Yes, exactly. I wanted to ask you about transcendental meditation. I've been doing TM since 1969, and I was certified as a teacher of time in 1972. But I don't talk about that much because there's a lot of controversy. There's not that much controversy about Tai Chi. You can go to Tai Chi in the park and people have seen it. It's not weird, but when you talk about meditation, there's a lot of controversy, especially there's some religious reaction against meditation and anything from India. So I don't really talk about it that much. If someone comes to me and says, I really want to learn TM, I'll teach them. But I don't promote myself as a teacher. I'll go out of my way to talk about that. Now, here's a funny little anecdote we can conclude on this if you want to. I was in under the gazebo where the Casement's are in Ormond Beach, and we have class there a couple of times a week and some people want by the woman turned to the man so we can intention. I think she said it so we could hear what a bunch of quacks, you know, looking at us doing Tai Chi. And this is that reactionary thing. If it's not something that you're familiar with, you know, you, you tend to dismiss it as quackery. I mean, it didn't hurt my feelings, but it this is why I especially with meditation, I'm pretty careful about talking about. Yeah. And that's why I'm doing one of the reasons why I'm doing these podcasts is because I want people to listen and learn to to hear what the benefits are of different things out there that we can do to improve our health, our fitness, our minds in the way we deal with things. It's real and it works. And somebody who might see you in the park and think it's what is it doing for you when they hear you talk and we talk about all the things that it does for you and where it's brought you in your life and others too. And maybe you might even like to mention a success story without mentioning names of one of your students. This is a good thing. So I have a student who has Parkinson's. There's a lot of research, probably the single biggest well, the single biggest body of research into Tai Chi and benefits is for prevention. Absolutely. Dozens and dozens of studies. But next is Parkinson. And so I have a student who has Parkinson's and his tremors have reduced. His balance is better, his agility is better. I can tell cognitively that he is sharper than he was, you know, when he started six months ago. So there that was a great question to end the podcast on an actual real life example of someone who's benefited from the practice of tai chi. And how wonderful does that make you feel as a teacher? It does make me feel wonderful. But more to the point, I know that this works. So it's not like, Wow, it worked for you. You know, it's going to work for anybody who does what you said. You know, we daily or three times a week for 12 weeks or months or whatever, they're going to get better. Yeah, very good. Okay. I'd like for you to leave our audience with a goal to lead a better life. Okay. I will tell you, the single best thing that anybody can do is to learn how to breathe correctly and incorporate that either into a specific time where they just do a seated breathing practice or incorporate correct proper breathing into their daily activity. And again, as a yoga teacher, I know that you can appreciate that. Andrew Townsend.. Try to get a better breathing practice. It'll take you a long way for sure. Thank you so much for being on the show. I appreciate it. I know it's going to be a great one and the listeners will definitely enjoy listening to you. The Tai Chi Master. Thank you so much for inviting me. This is Angela Grayson from the Loving Life Fitness Podcast. To help others in their fitness journey. It's All Possible! It’s time to wake up. Here we go.

People on this episode

Contributor

Angela Grayson

Host