We often talk about the way Tai Chi can improve your physical health and mental and emotional well-being from the point of view of the practitioner. But not everyone out there is as familiar with practical ways to use Tai Chi to support their health and wellness goals as you may be. Later this year, I’m thrilled to have the chance to share Tai Chi with physicians in a course at Harvard Medical School.
Trained in Evolutionary Biology, Peter Wayne, Ph.D., has spent the last 12 years in medical research and more than 35 years studying and teaching Tai Chi. He now serves as Research Director for the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine jointly based at the Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where a primary focus of his research is studying the clinical and physiological impacts of Tai Chi on health.
I’ve been working on this video, documenting an instructor training we recently hosted at Brookline Tai Chi:
Our director, Perry, selected music, but YouTube came back saying it was copyright infringement to use that track. Ok…so it gave me an alternative called AudioSwap. This is unbelievable. Basically, YouTube has a soundtrack generation engine, that you can browse by genre and artist and even filter per the length of your video.
I’m sure I’ll have more to say about this work in the future, but we’ve just done a series of demos this fall highlighting the expanding role of evidence-based Tai Chi programs as public health interventions. When you look at the cost of a fall for older adults (I’ve heard figures like $20,000) and the good evidence that Tai Chi can reduce falls and fear of falling (now considered a risk factor for falling), it makes so much sense to fund Tai Chi classes all over: senior centers, assisted living facilities, community centers.
