Boulder Mindful Exercise: T'ai Chi for Health & Relaxation

•In the Tai Chi Chuan Classics it is said:

When the lowest vertebrae are plumb erect,
The spirit reaches to the top of the head.
With the top of the head as if suspended from above,
The whole body feels itself light and nimble.

•"Relaxing the whole body by refusing to exert force or to tense one's muscles will ensure freedom of movement...
Professor Cheng Man-ch'ing

•"Exercise is about as close to a panacea as you can get, and I don't believe in panaceas" says Jerry May, Ph.D., former chair of the U.S. Olympic Committee's Sport Psychology Committee and psychiatry professor as the University of Navada at Reno's School of Medicine. "It is a health inducer, a stress reducer, and a self-confidence booster."

•Hippocrates prescribed exercise for mental illness!

•Norway, 1989: 43 patients one to two years after being treated in a hospital for major depression. Respondents ranked 'physical exercise' as the most important element in the treatment program.

"I have been practicing Tai-Chi Chuan for over fifty years. Only two years ago that I started to understand the word 'relax'. I remember my Tai-Chi Chuan teacher Yang Cheng-Fu who did not like to talk much and he used to sit all day without saying a word if no one asked him questions. However, in our Tai-chi class he
would tell us to 'relax' repeatedly. Sometimes it seemed like he would say the word hundreds of times during the practice so that the word could fill up my ears. Strangely enough he also said that if he did not tell me of this word that I would not be able to learn Tai-chi in three life-times (meaning never). I doubted his words then. Now that I think back, I truly believe that if he did not keep reminding me of the word 'relax', I doubt if I could have learned Tai-chi Chuan in six life-times."
Professor Cheng Man-ch'ing