Tai Chi and Qi Gong

I started a Tai Chi and Qi Gong class last night!

The exclamation point is there because I'm kind of excited about it. I've been fascinated by Tai Chi for a long time. My wife and I tried to do an online class a few years ago, and some of the moves were just too difficult to imitate when we could not have an instructor there to guide us. I finally gave in and signed up for an adult education class that meets on Monday nights. 

For those of you who aren't familiar with these things, Tai Chi began as a martial art, and it's easy to imagine some of the movements as blocking or parrying an opponent. But these days, it's mostly used as a health practice. It involves lots of slow, flowing movements, and it makes you very aware of your own body. Older folks are sometimes encouraged to try Tai Chi because it is fairly easy on the joints, and it helps improve balance.

Qi Gong is related, and even older. It also involves slow movements, deep breathing, and awareness of your own body. You can learn more about Tai Chi and Qi Gong and their health benefits at the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. And if anyone out there is a serious practitioner of one or both and explain things in better detail, please add to the comments.

The fact that they are often parts of Complementary and Integrative Medicine is certainly something that caught my attention. In fact, after the class was over, the instructor encouraged us to practice by watching videos that he had made for my cancer center's Integrative Medicine office. He does a lot of work with cancer patients in helping them find ways to move their bodies that are not too physically stressful. I didn't sign up for the class because of his cancer connection, though that was really nice to hear about.

 All of this reminded me of an article I had seen recently called "What are the optimal mind-body therapies for cancer-related pain? A network meta-analysis," published in the journal Translation Exercise Biomedicine. The authors looked at previous studies of mind-body therapies, practices like Tai Chi, Yoga, and guided meditation that help people become more aware of their bodies. They were interested in how those practices help cancer patients manage pain. The study found that Qi Gong and Tai Chi were best at helping patients manage pain. 

But perhaps more significantly, they found that many of the studies they looked at really didn't find much difference in the practices. All of them were effective in helping manage pain: Qi Gog, Tai Chi, Yoga, Baduanjin (a type of Qi Gong), Dance, conventional exercise, and health education.

I think the larger point is that some type of movement is helpful, and there are plenty of ways to exercise without going to a gym (Chair Yoga is becoming very popular, I know). It's a matter of finding the thing that speaks to you and trying them out until you find one that makes you feel good.

And really, it's about feeling good. I learned very quickly last night how little I use my shoulders these days. I had shoulder surgery about 10 years ago and can't do the type of weight lifting I used to enjoy. An hour of slow movement was enough to make me very aware of my shoulders. I wasn't ever in pain, but my arms got very tired very quickly. My legs were great -- my wife and I walk a couple of miles every morning. But my arms could use some work. I assume they will feel a little better every week. I know, at this point in my life, that bad things don't last forever.

All of this is, of course, related to Survivorship -- the way we live out lives after diagnosis and treatment. I want to be able to do the things I want to do, for a very long time. When my wife and I went on a river cruise earlier this summer,  we met some very active folks who were 10 or even 20 years older than us. We want to be like them and keep moving forward.

So I encourage you to find the things that get you moving ad make you feel good. It certainly doesn't have to be Tai Chi. That's my thing. Even my wife declines to join me in that -- she signed up for a yoga class instead. Which is good for her. 

Just keep moving forward.