Читать книгу Tai Chi: A practical approach to the ancient Chinese movement for health and well-being - Angus Clark - Страница 11

THE BODY IS an extraordinary, wonderful instrument. It is mechanically well designed and physically intricate, yet it also houses the spirit. The body bestows on its owner the gift of movement, yet people living a modern lifestyle rarely if ever make the most of this ability, and many have forgotten or never discovered their bodies’ capabilities. Yet not only is the body designed to move, it needs to, in order to stay healthy. Tai chi provides a form of exercise that offers a remedy for the ills of modern living, a supportive answer to the body’s need to move.

While they are still developing in their mother’s womb, unborn infants know how to move. They swim, dance, push, wriggle, and kick. Immediately after birth, babies move instinctively and without inhibition, and during the early years, movement plays an essential part in childhood learning and personal development. Young children crawl, roll, totter, and fall; as they grow they play on swings, slides, roundabouts, and with each other. A child’s world is largely body-based.

Relatively few adults in modern industrial countries still have to cut hay, harvest crops, fetch water, or chop wood by hand in order to survive. Most are relieved of such tiresome tasks and chores by modern economic organization, which uses machines to perform repetitive jobs, releasing people to attend to tasks carried out by telephone, pager, fax, or computer, reached by automobile, rail or air link, e-mail or internet. Many are not forced by their work to stretch or stress their bodies. Problems tend to begin shortly after the point where demands cease to be made of the body. Arthritis, for example, is associated with under-exercising the joints. One physiologist has estimated that 150 years of good service could normally be expected from the superbly designed joints of the human frame. Yet they waste away, working at a fraction of their potential, while the body sits on office chairs or lounges on sofas.

A sedentary lifestyle now can mean mobility problems later on in life.

By placing emphasis on mental achievement and a globalizing electronic culture, contemporary living draws energy from the body into the head, simply because exercising the mind draws blood to the brain. The ratio of mental and emotional stimulation to physical activity was reversed during the 20th century, and for many the reversal took place in fewer than 50 years. Modern work stresses the mind but fails to work the body, making true rest difficult to achieve.

Western society today is predominantly sedentary. Anyone doing an office or a driving job is required to sit for long periods. Then, at the end of the day they rest in a sitting position, unlike most animals, which tend to rest lying down. Tribal peoples who retain their ancient customs often rest by squatting, kneeling, or lying. Modern people sit on a chair, on the tail of the spine, a position that far from being restful is a kind of slump. In time, this bad posture can result in a tendency to asthma, lower back trouble, and prolapsed (displaced) internal organs.

Sitting back to relax and watch TV sets up another dynamic. The body responds to the visual stimuli presented on a screen by producing an emotional response in the form of energy that needs to find expression. Aware of the need for an outlet for such unexpressed energy, many people take up some form of exercise. It is all too easy, however, to overreact and pummel the body with exercise. Activity that is too vigorous can shock the body and injure its systems.

Tai chi is a holistic practice, its movements exercise the whole body, not just individual muscles or muscle groups. It works gently to encourage the body's natural harmony.

Tai chi is quality movement. It is physically demanding, yet it works with the body to encourage the gradual developing of strength and reviving of natural openness and coordination. This process is not something that can be hurried, however. Tai chi is an art that needs to be mastered through gradual learning and practice, but the benefits of investing time and effort in it become apparent very early on.

Like a door, the body must be kept moving to prevent its hinge joints – and other types of joint – from seizing up, and tai chi works to condition the elements of the human frame. It promotes greater understanding of the body’s natural alignment and stance, encouraging the habit of good posture. Its movements continually turn the spine, an action that gradually repositions misplaced organs, stimulating them at the same time through an internal form of massage. The tai chi movements dissipate excess nervous tension held in the body and so help balance the nervous system. Through apparently simple exercises, such as standing on one leg, tai chi stimulates the muscle groups to work together. Continued through life it prevents the joints of the hips and limbs from degenerating.

Working out can demand too much of the body without considering its needs and tolerances.

The unique upright stance of humans gives us a greater potential for movements than creatures who walk on four legs. The physical capabilities of humans may seem inferior when in water, yet it is the human who can walk out of the water onto the land, play volleyball, climb a tree, paint a picture, and cook a meal. Each day, our bodies perform wonders for us.

But do we know our bodies? The next section presents some of the workings of the body from a holistic point of view, from the mechanical structure of the frame to the internal systems and the location of the energy centers, and shows how tai chi encourages the development of a personal connection with the body.