Your brain while meditating – calm, clear and confident. Your brain doing tai chi – calm, clear, and confident. This is no coincidence. Even my newer students notice how the more experienced students ‘get in the zone’ when doing tai chi. They want that, too. Don’t we all??
Ah, mawhitiwhiti iti (little grasshoppers), the key is in the breathing. With tai chi you learn how to match your breath with your movements.
I’ve dug out a great article to help you understand how it works:
“… Both tai chi and mindfulness meditation focus your attention on the breath. That single focus may help your brain make lasting changes that impact the way you see (and cope) with things.
Research has found that both tai chi and meditation have a powerful effect on the mind, cultivating a stillness that serves to increase focus, reduce stress, and boost cognitive skills.” Read on
Wait there’s more! This research has also shown that tai chi can train your brain and improve your life in three ways. This is because tai chi:
grows the size of your brain, even when you are no longer a child (or even young)
improves your memory and ability to stay focussed
shakes off stress.
Keep practising and you too will enter the zone. Click here to discover more about this research into tai chi.
Kia Ora Tai Chi has partnered with Cornwall Park to offer four FREE tai chi lessons at their Park Life event, which will be held on Saturday 30 March, 2019, 11am – 4pm. (If wet, the event will be held on Saturday 6 April).
The tai chi sessions will be:
11 – 11.45am: Tai chi for beginners – Learn easy, flowing steps of this ancient Chinese martial art. Low impact, fun, family-friendly and ideal for all age groups. (Note: This will be the same tai chi that we taught at the “Summer Tai Chi in Cornwall Park” sessions.)
12 – 12.45pm: Yang-style tai chi – Join in to do the 24-step and combined 42-step forms. It is fun to watch or jump in and have a go in the spirit of “Let’s play tai chi together”.
2 – 2.45pm: Tai chi as moving meditation – Learn how to relax and de-stress with special tai chi movements. Once learned you can do these anytime, anywhere. Gentle on your joints and ideal for beginners of all ages.
3 – 3.45pm: Tai chi for beginners – Learn easy, flowing steps of this ancient Chinese martial art. Low impact, fun, family-friendly and ideal for all age groups. (Note: This will be a repeat of the 11 – 11.45am session.)
Location: Same as for “Summer Tai Chi in Cornwall Park”. Under the big trees on the left-hand-side of Pohutukawa Drive (as you come up from Greenlane Road). Look for the tai chi signs and the Kia Ora Tai Chi team wearing red shirts.
What to wear:
Comfy clothes and shoes
A sun hat, sun block and insect repellent
Bring a sweatshirt or jacket in case of cool weather. Please bring a water bottle, too.
No need to RSVP. Just come along and join in with your friends and family. A big thank you to the Cornwall Park Trust Board for funding these sessions so everyone can enjoy learning tai chi for free.
Get that summery feeling back with tai chi in Cornwall Park
More about Park Life
This is a free event celebrating nature, exploration and all the things you can experience in the park, which will be closed for motorised traffic. With no cars, you will be able to freely roam the 425 acres of land while discovering activities, games, performances, food and more that will be spread throughout the park!
When: Saturday 30 March, 2019, 11am – 4pm
Bring your friends, whānau, a picnic, and your walking shoes for a free fun-filled day in the park.
The last summer tai chi session for 2019 in Cornwall Park was on Tuesday 29 January, 2019, 6 – 7pm.
If you’re looking for more free tai chi sessions with Kia Ora Tai Chi then check out this link.
Contact us, to find out whether there’ll be summer tai chi sessions in January and February 2022.
The Summer Tai Chi in Cornwall Park sessions began on Sunday mornings (9-10am) on the 2nd, 9th and 16th of December 2018 and Tuesday evenings (6-7pm) on 4th, 11th and 18th December 2018. With the exception of New Year’s Day, the lessons continued on every Sunday morning and Tuesday evening in January 2019. Classes were approximately 45 mins. Fun for all of the family, from children to grandparents. Ideal for beginners.
All of these sessions were led by Jocelyn Watkin, of Kia Ora Tai Chi. Jocelyn is a qualified and premier instructor for Tai Chi for Health Institute, who has over 20 years martial arts experience. All of Jocelyn’s tai chi classes are also approved with the BIG TICK for the Community Group Strength and Balance Programme: “Live Stronger for Longer”.
Location: Under the big trees on the left-hand-side of Pohutukawa Drive (as you come up from Greenlane Road). Keep an eye out for the tai chi signs. Jocelyn and her fellow instructors will be wearing red Kia Ora Tai Chi polo shirts.
Summer tai chi in Cornwall Park is fun, free and suitable for all ages. You don’t need special clothes or equipment. A big thank you to the Cornwall Park Trust Board for funding these sessions so everyone can enjoy learning tai chi for free.
Please bring a bottle of water and insect repellent.
What to wear:
Comfy clothes and shoes
A sun hat and sun block
Bring a jersey/sweatshirt in case there is a breeze.
If fine, just come along to any session. There’s no need to RSVP as all will be welcome. Ideal for complete beginners.
Described as “moving meditation”, tai chi is an ancient Chinese martial art that combines mental focus and mindfulness with deliberate and relaxed movements that are gentle on the joints.
People often ask whether tai chi can help with fitness. When I say “YES” they ask how is this possible when you don’t ‘huff and puff’ while doing tai chi?
Puffing and the ‘blood, sweat and tears’ approach to exercise is mainly propaganda from the gyms touting for business. Fortunately, there is better news for those who don’t fancy working up a sweat or can’t?
The team at “Trust Me I’m a Doctor” (BBC TV) set off to the University of Birmingham to answer the question on whether something so slow and graceful as tai chi could really give you the benefits of a more vigorous workout.
For this clinical trial, they worked with volunteers aged 65 – 75 to compare tai chi with Zumba Gold. The results (released in October 2018) surprised them: The tai chi group showed similar benefits to those in the Zumba group, with improvements in blood pressure and vessel flexibility.
Numerous other studies and clinical trials have shown that tai chi improves muscular strength, flexibility, fitness, immunity, relieves pain and improves the quality of life. If you’d like to know more about this and how/why tai chi works then chick out this information from Dr Paul Lam and the Tai Chi for Health Institute: https://taichiforhealthinstitute.org/articles/life-style/
Dr Lam says that, “Hour for hour, practising a Tai Chi for Health programme is probably the most effective exercise to improve health and well-being“. To find more about the Tai Chi for Health programmes that I teach click here.
New Zealand might be the first country in the world to see the sun each day. But, not on Saturday 28 April 2018, World Tai Chi & Qi Gong (WTCQG) day. The rain really bucketed down in Auckland.
Each year on the last Saturday of April, tens of thousands of people in many cities across the world gather to do tai chi together at 10am. It is a global wave of goodwill – one human family, breathing together as one. The event’s motto is, “One World – One Breath”
Our small but determined Kia Ora Tai Chi group were one of the first in the world to kick-off WTCQG Day at 10am. We began with a warm up exercise: ‘awakening the qi’ and trying to bring on some sunbeams.
Sadly, those sunbeams wouldn’t come out to play. So, we headed indoors and created a sunny, happy atmosphere inside. Several Kia Ora Tai Chi students (in red shirts) came along to be part of this unique, world-wide event and we also attracted around 10 members of the public. Even those who had never done tai chi before were able to learn the first eight steps of the Sun-style form. Here we are doing those eight steps and basking in the sunshine of our own making:
WTCQG Day was founded 20 years ago by Bill Douglas and his wife, Angela Wong Douglas. From a small start in Kansas, USA, the event is now held in 100s of cities in over 80 countries.
Your brain while meditating – calm, clear and confident. Your brain doing tai chi – calm, clear, and confident. This is no coincidence. Even my newer students notice how the more experienced students ‘get in the zone’ when doing tai chi. They want that, too. Don’t we all??
This is a post from November 2018.
All of these sessions were led by 
