Hi Joel,
I am a clinical social worker who works with individuals with MS. I have been practicing Yang style short-form Tai Chi and mindfulness meditation for many years and recently saw your blog about your practice of Tai Chi. I would love to teach my clients Tai Chi for all the reasons you mentioned. Do you have any suggestions in terms of teaching Tai Chi to clients with special needs? I would greatly appreciate your input. Are there any books you might suggest?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Jeanne B., MSSW, LCSW
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Hi Jeanne
Wish you the best as you share your tai chi with MS clients.
I have found the challenge to be adapting tai chi to the individual needs of he student. Everyone comes with something different in terms of mind and body. Over the past two years I guided an 80 year old man who is blind to the point where he is able to do the 108 move long form. Of course, he was highly motivated and of generous spirit.
Being adaptive has meant communicating the underlying mind/body element in any particular movement regardless of range of motion or balance limitations.
The blog is my reflections on the effort at making tai chi work for me.
One can gather bits and pieces to experiment with from various books but in the end it is the particular form of tai chi that you practice that will guide your teaching. The form is your template; your teaching the adaptation of the template to people with individual and special needs.
Happy Thanksgiving -- there is much for which we are grateful.
sending you good chi,
Joel
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3 comments:
108 moves!!!? Good God man, I would not finish before noon! :D
Happy Thanksgiving.
Hi Joel,
That's fantastic - you can help others having quite a serious problem yourself!
Regretfully, I can't follow you, but I can consider starting Tai Chi.
Thanks a lot
Hi Joel,
Have missed seeing updates to your blog. I completed Health Recovery Week last month at the Center in Canada and found it to be a very uplifting and rewarding experience. I am also blogging about my experiences with weight loss and also with Taoist Tai Chi. I found some good compensations for some of the more difficult moves for me since I have no dorsiflexion to speak of (carry tiger to mountain is one of my more difficult moves) since I tend to move from the ball of my foot rather then on the heel - it is an ongoing attempt to get the form correct to get the entire benefit of Tai Chi.
Hope you are doing well and that your journey is uneventful!
Carol Mc (AKA Happy Egghead)
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