INJURIES

As my mom says, "Getting old is not for sissies." Life doesn't play nice. The body will, inevitably, slow down. And yet, time and time again, we see people come into the studio, and they seem to shed the years, to turn back time, to grow younger. Some of our senior students (who fit that term in more than one way) do things that our spring chickens only dream about.

And yet, even now, injuries happen. One of the great benefits of Tai Chi is that our practice teaches us how to deal with this. Medical science has recently found out that when someone receives an injury, those people who stop and rest the injury actually recover slower than those who exercise the injury. In Tai Chi, our body awareness already naturally teaches us to be aware and gentle with our bodies, enough that we continue our practice without exacerbating the injury, and at the same time disciplined enough to embrace the discomfort of working the injury, recognizing that it is the path to change and growth.

We all get injuries. It's a part of life. In Tai Chi we learn how to heal them.

Always be gentle with your injuries, and talk to Master Zi about how best to take care of the rehabilitation process.