Farmer Ch'i? Tai Chi Practice Helps Cows Produce Milk

Reminsicent of Chinese health exercises for farmers developed in the early PRC, the Federation of Organic Milk Groups through their website "Love Om" in the UK has posted instructions for tai chi exercises that farmers claim increases by 10% a cow's milk production. As one of the farmers says, "The happier I am, the happier the cows are. And the happier they are, the more milk they produce."
The movements, grouped by day of the week, are adapted to Western sensibilities using such names as ‘Lazily Buttoning Overalls', adapted from ‘Lazy about Tying Coat' (Lan Zha Yi).
The accompanying music however, is thoroughly Chinese, rather than fiddle and fife or bagpipe. BBC News, 4/14/08

Tai Chi Helps With Parkinson's Disease

"Tai Chi improves balance and mobility in people with Parkinson disease" is the title of an article in Posture and Gait M. E. Hackney, and G. M. Earhart that describes the use of tai chi on balance, gait, and mobility for helping people with Parkinson's disease. Subjects showed improvement on numerous tests, including backward walking. An interesting thing to note is that neither the tai chi group or the control group improved on forward walking or one leg stance test. (April 1, 2008). Author Hackney has also done research on the use of tango dancing for the same population.

All the Chi in China

An admirably indepth and lengthy look at the morning taiji scene in Beijing's parks by Stanley Stewart of the Sunday Times in London:

"T’ai chi is illustrative of what is so different about Chinese exercise. There is lots of mental concentration and very little sweat. Exercise is elegant, graceful, almost sedate. Not for the Chinese the muscle-pumping of the gym, the slog of the jogging track. Nobody here is going for the burn. Instead, it is all about balance and concentration and flexibility. In a western fitness programme, t’ai chi would register only as an elaborate warm-up, a series of stretching exercises. In China, it is the main course, because it involves thought as well as movement." (See the full article at Times UK Online edition 3/08/08).

Taiji for Parkinson's

Doctors at Mass General Hospital are warming up to taiji as a therapy for their patients with Parkinson's disease.
Over 1.5 million Americans have the disease which causes involuntary and rigid movements. Taiji helps by keeping the muscles relaxed and loose, and improving balance. Read more....

Chinese New Year Back Issue Special

Deepen your practice of taijiquan (t'ai chi ch'uan) with Taijiquan Journal. Our back issue special includes all eighteen issues of the print edition for only $99 plus shipping! These timeless magazines include how-to articles, history, translations, book reviews, interviews, art, and our unique cartoon "The Yang and the Rootless" by New York Times bestselling author-illustrator Jackie Urbanovic. Articles include:

• Al Chungliang Huang Interview
• "No, Mom, We're Not a Cult" by Ben Harrison
• Zhongxian Wu on The Yijing and Horse Stance
• Biography of Wu Tunan by Harold Lee
• Art, photography, and writing by David Chen
• Taiji history with Stanley Henning
• Maggie Newman on Teaching
• Ju Ming, Taiji Sculptor by Cheryl Powers
• Bataan Faigao on Buddhism and Taiji
• Huang Chien-liang on Health
• Chen Weiming's Introduction
• Questions and Answers with Huang Sheng-Shyan
• Theory and Technique with Li Ya-shwan, Liu Hsi-heng, Dong Yingjie
• Plus, the taiji poetry and literature of Allen Ginsberg, Henrik Ibsen, Mark Strand, Bill Holm, Mose Allison, Lynn Sharon Schwartz, and "The News from Lake Taijiquan" by Barbara Davis

QUANTITIES ARE LIMITED
Offer good until February 29, 2008.

All eighteen back issues are $99 plus shipping, total of $110 (US orders. Contact us at editor(at) taijiquanjournal.com or call 612-822-5760 for international rates).

Books and Media Received February 2008

Recent releases of books and media include:

Cheng Man-ch'ing: The Master Tapes a documentary style four-hour DVD collection of footage shot in Cheng's New York School in the 1960s (Mastedon Productions, 2008).
Journal of Asian Martial Arts features a landmark article by Douglas Wile on "Taijiquan and Daoism from religion to martial art and martial art to religion."

Taijiquan Classics Garners Review

Taijiquan Journal editor Barbara Davis' book The Taijiquan Classics: An Annotated Translaton is reviewed by Chinese martial arts historian Stanley Henning in the Fall 2006 issue (published Fall 2007) of the prestigious China Review International. He writes, "Taijiquan, as we see it today, did not develop in a vacuum, but reflects developments in one style of Chinese boxing under conditions that influenced all the Chinese martial arts, to one degree or another, over the past 300-plus years. Chen Weiming (1881–1958) helped twentieth-century Chinese taijiquan students gain a better understanding of its concepts and dynamics. Barbara Davis has placed this in context, and through her translation, made it available to a global audience in the twenty-first century....Davis' chapters on the language and literature and ideas in the taijiquan "classics" provide the "icing on the cake"—the insights into Chinese culture, from which to savor her translations....I wholeheartedly recommend this book not only to taijiquan practitioners but also to anyone interested in Chinese martial arts and their place in Chinese culture."

Signed copies of the book are available; write to editor "at" taijiquanjournal.com for ordering information. For those who already own a copy of the book, an errata page can be found at the The Taijiquan Classics website.