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Yang Style Tai Chi Classes in North LondonTraditional Yang Style Tai Chi - NEXT BEGINNERS COURSE STARTS 5th JULY
Mei Quan Academy of Taiji (London)
Traditional Yang Style  
Gabi Putnoki
Stoke Newington branch
Next 12 week beginner course starting on
5th July 2010, Mondays 7.00 - 8.15pm
and
costs £108
In the beginners class we teach the 24-step short form and give a taster of Qi Gong and partner work exercises. A higher level class for more advanced students is available from 8.35 - 9.30pm including martial applications and pushing hands. We have access to a large secluded garden to use for training - weather permitting.
Our academy Mei Quan Academy (pronounced "May Ch-one"), established in 1990, is comprised of a number of local branches throughout London. We have developed a warm and friendly atmosphere, and a group of long-established, highly-trained and well-supervised teachers. We teach all aspects of Yang Style Taiji (often spelt Tai Chi, or fully as Taijiquan) to a mixed and good-humoured group of students, from beginners’ classes through to advanced.
Class Environment
Classes usually have a 50/50 male/ female mix of students who come from all walks of life and around the world. The atmosphere is relaxed and supportive and our teachers pay close attention to the students’ progress as a class and individually. There is time for laughter during classes, and for sociable tea breaks afterwards; learning and training require a balance of enjoyment, focus, relaxation and connection. We encourage genuine training rather than pretentiousness or appearances.
We run extensive special events, class outings, seminars, parties, dinners and excursions, in and around London. In our classes there is a long-established group of supportive senior students whose advice can be requested at any time by beginners.
What We Practise
- Becoming calm, centred and grounded
- Co-ordination, balance, suppleness and skill
- Harmony of body, mind and spirit, and harmony with natural cycles
- Self-knowledge, confidence, self-discipline
- Developing increased energy
We practise all elements of the traditional Yang Style syllabus, and interested students can choose to study any or all of the 5 aspects of Taiji: development of one’s health, meditation, martial art, spiritual self-development, and aspects of Chinese Medicine and traditional culture.
Our training encourages a high level of excellence and achievement in all aspects of life.
Contact Gabi on 07982 716 981 or gabi@meiquan.co.uk
Further Information About Tai Chi
“Discover The 300 Hundred Year Old Secret to a Healthy Heart, Strong Muscles, Limber Joints, and Inner Youth”Acclaimed American Doctor Robert Willicks MD is an enormous enthusiast of Tai Chi. “Of all the physical and mental healing arts I’ve learned, Tai Chi is the gentlest, easiest to learn, and the most rejuvenating for your physical and mental health. It lowers blood pressure, heals achy joints, stimulates circulation, builds muscle, and mobilises the immune system….all without stress or strain!”
“Those who practice tai chi faithfully, have a different kind of life, well into their 80’s and 90’s. Their bones are strong not frail. Their joints are limber, not aching and stiff. Their minds do not wander; they remain focused. Their heartbeat is calm, and their bodies are internally fortified against disease.
“Last month I ‘prescribed’ tai chi to treat a number of diseases and painful conditions. If you have arthritis, for example, tai chi is your best stretching exercise, because it builds the flexibility you need to mobilise your stiff joints.
If you have cancer, tai chi is ideal because it improves your aerobic capacity and stimulates your immune system without creating free radical damage.
If you have heart disease, practicing tai chi regularly not only lowers your blood pressure and helps you lose weight, it also defuses negative feelings, such as anger, frustration and depression which can trigger a heart attack.
“Also the moves are simple, gentle and easy to learn. They need no special skill and can be done anywhere, indoors or outdoors, alone or with a group. Anyone can become a ‘master’. It takes just a little practice, focus and a good teacher.
“Tai chi is ideal if you want the pleasure and benefit of exercise, but can’t subject your bones and joints to jarring, strenuous activity.
“Tai chi works wonders for my patients with chronic pain caused by everything from herniated discs to osteoporosis. Some patients came to me on the most complicated pain medicine ‘schedule’ you could dream up, and still enjoyed wonderful results – from major reductions in painkillers to complete freedom from pain. Plus…
It’s exhilarating!
“My patients who practice tai chi have a glow about them. Amazingly, the more you give in to the ‘nothingness’, the more magnetic your physical presence becomes. Tai chi has been said to ‘tame the wild horses of your emotions.’
“Even if you think you’re not coordinated or agile, you can learn these movements at your own pace. In fact you’ll probably think ‘This isn’t exercise! It’s too slow, too easy!’ But don’t be fooled. These movements build powerful inner focus and strength.
Five Major Benefits of Tai Chi
”Tai chi is the true fountain of youth. It activates your youth hormones and immune cells, strengthens your heart, trims down your waist, refines your reflexes and balance, and helps you fend off the signs of age. And for your mood? It’s like opening a window in a stuffy room --- at last!
“For my patients and readers who hate to exercise and for anyone whose joints and heart can’t take a strenuous workout, tai chi is perfect. For your heart and metabolism, it’s the equivalent of walking at a four-mile-an-hour pace. But tai chi profoundly improves your health in ways ‘regular’ exercise can not…
* Awaken your energy, bring down your blood pressure:
The breathing techniques reduce stress, lower your heart rate, and increase your level of focused energy.
* Sharpen your mental focus:
Performing the repeated patterns of movement builds your concentration, exercises your memory and improves your ability to perform daily tasks with greater ease.
* Elongate your muscles, limber up your joints:
The slow, curving movements decrease tension and improve muscle resiliency and joint flexibility.
* Improve balance and reduce risk of fall and injury:
You’ll learn to turn your body slowly and walk with a more narrow stance, improving your balance and greatly decreasing your chances of falling or injuring yourself.
* Improve circulation:
Deep breathing and sweeping motions bring a flush to your muscles as the blood circulates great stores of fresh oxygen, nutrients and immune fluids throughout your limbs.
Bordering on the superhuman: How tai chi helped one man prevent permanent paralysis
Spirits were high when Randy Jong, a San Francisco schoolteacher and musician, set out with his wife and four children for a vacation.
But as the family minivan cruised toward Los Angeles, a rear tire suddenly blew out. The vehicle spun across the road, flipped over twice and screeched to rest, a pile of mangled steel. Jong's wife and children managed to struggle from the wreckage, but 42-year-old Randy, still conscious, lay pinned inside as gasoline poured from the tank and spilled across the highway.
Rescuers used the jaws of life to extricate Jong, who was flown to the hospital and diagnosed with a compressed vertebra. His spinal cord was intact, but he had broken his neck. Doctors told Jong's family that he would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
Jong's family kept the news from him, however, and he worked to walk again with a diligence he says he developed from studying tai chi.
On his back, he practiced deep breathing exercises and mentally rehearsed the tai chi movements he once performed every day.
After two weeks he moved a finger; weeks later, he managed to move a toe. Practicing tai chi all those years before the accident helped me recover, says Jong.
Not only was he in excellent physical condition, with flexible muscles and a strong cardiovascular system, but he was also in good mental shape, with a well-developed ability to relax and concentrate that helped him persevere. Jong's recovery was nothing short of miraculous.
Less than six months after the accident, he appeared at his regular tai chi class and, unaided, performed the beginner's exercises.
I was slow, he recalls, but I could do it.
This ‘Supreme’ art has endured for over 300 years
”‘Tai’ means ‘ultimate’ or ‘supreme’ and ‘chi’ is the all-encompassing life force, the spirit of the earth and the soul. Nothing attest more to the value of this healing art than the fact that it’s stood the toughest and most telling test there is: the test of time! Tai chi has been passed down from generation to generation for 300 years.
Tai chi is the optimum healing activity for people of all ages
”Today the Chinese practise tai chi every day to ensure mental and physical fitness. Medical studies shoe that even though tai chi is slow, ‘low intensity’ exercise, it still improves cardiovascular health and fitness, and even relieves depression.
“According to China Sports, practising tai chi generates a sense of internal peace, as you must concentrate on the movements to the exclusion of all external distraction. And the motions, smooth and fluid, naturally cause your mind and muscles to relax and your flexibility to increase.
A gentle full-body workout that takes just a few minutes a day
”For your metabolism, heart health and blood pressure, tai chi is just as effective as walking at four miles per hour. There are no awkward stretches or poses to hold, and no jumping, running or lifting. Nevertheless, when you come to the end of a tai chi session, your breathing will be deep, your muscles flushed, and your mind refreshed. The overall effect is a mental and physical fitness that carries through the rest of the day, and of course becomes even more profound, month after month, year after year.
“Since you control your own pace, you can do the whole series of movements without breaking a sweat, or as you become more comfortable, you can push yourself a little harder by bending lower and stretching more.
“My wife and I take tai chi classes every night. We started, just like everyone else, with a few minutes a day and built up slowly. I’m not exaggerating when I say that tai chi has changed my life. I’m stronger and more centred. I wake up happier and more refreshed every morning and sleep soundly every night.”
To join the Traditional Yang Style class in Stoke Newington please phone 07982 716 981 or email gabi@meiquan.co.uk
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