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Say chi, it’s Tai Chi
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Tai Chi is deceptively simple but rejuvenating, finds Sangeetha Devi Dundoo
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Sometimes, the toughest task is to get the simplest of things right. Tai Chi, unlike most martial arts, requires you to do the minimal without getting worked up. But it isn’t as easy as it appears to be. I walk in to Kalpa School on a Saturday
evening, eager to get a feel of the soft martial art. Tai Chi master Sifu George Thomas greets me with a traditional Lee (form a fist with your right hand and cover your left palm over it as you bow to your guru and colleagues. The left palm remains closed in case of soft martial arts and fingers raised vertically for hard martial arts).
Anyone who is fit enough to walk can try Tai Chi, George Thomas tells me. He also tells me that I will need to attend a minimum of five classes to get into the groove and experience the Yang style of Tai Chi. I have two other newcomers for company and we are coached separately from the group that’s already in sync with Tai Chi. The trained batch performs synchronised movements like a dance set to rhythm without batting en eyelid. It’s an art form that’s perfected over weeks of practice.
Photos: Sangeetha Devi Dundoo
The moves The group practices and (right) Sifu George Thomas
Nishol, one of the instructors, initiates us into the basics — warm up followed by the opening form and then proceed to learn isolated hand and leg movements before coordinating both. Now imagine holding a football with both your palms and bringing it obliquely down to the level of your waist. Simple, isn’t it? Only that you don’t have a football between your palms and you need to be graceful with your movement and coordinate it with the correct foot movements. It looks easy, only until we actually try it. Nishol tells us to not exert ourselves and do just what’s necessary. Tai Chi requires you to be light on your feet, align your knee with your ankle in certain postures without bending too much thereby hurting your knee, follow the light movements and the angles to shift your body weight from one leg to another effortlessly. The breathing isn’t forceful and remains deep and slow. A few minutes of practice later, George Thomas checks to see how far we’ve progressed. The movements need to be fluid and uninterrupted like the flow of water, he reminds us.
A few more minutes and we learn the ‘grabbing the peacock by its tail’ move rather well. The Yang style teaches you 85 coordinated moves.
Bottomline: Fitness is combined with meditation and can relieve stress, help fight conditions of blood pressure, arthritis and backache. Suits both young and old, improves mind-body coordination. (The academy can be contacted at 9849123104.)
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Mangalore
Puducherry
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
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