T'ai Chi ESTCC 4

5 elements

T'ai Chi ESTCC 3

5 elements

T'ai Chi ESTCC 2

5 Elements

T'ai Chi ESTCC 1

T'ai Chi for health

T'ai Chi is often associated with older people, attracting those who want help with balance and mobility.  However, it is a robust martial art, which can be enjoyed by a wide age range.  I have been practicing since my 20's and have found so many health benefits.  It is 'meditation in movement', keeping the mind calm and stress free. It is also used as a martial application and can be used for fighting forms, which can be fun and aerobic. It is also exceptional as a rehabilitation or prevention of musculoskeletal problems.  The warm up exercises take in all of the main joints of the body and the stretches make sure you will be supple and injury free.  By practicing several times per week, anyone with arthritis, whether you are 16 or 60 will benefit from keeping your posture upright and strong.  We often think of body builders as strong, but in fact long muscles, stretched and toned provide us with the strongest, mobile body.  Yogis, ballerinas and T'ai Chi students can develop very strong physiques.  In fact I would say the are strong because the core is strong, and long muscles provide more strength overall than just pumping iron and making muscles bigger. For those of you who love sport and gym work, T'ai Chi offers isometric exercise, holding positions which strengthen the core. Martial arts are lots of fun to learn and calming the mind has to be good in this crazy world. Combining T'ai Chi with other sporting activities is a great balance.

http://metta-taichi.org.uk/index.php/tai-chi-teachers/9-teacher-profiles/30-tracey-underhill-law-tai-chi-teacher-new-forest-hampshire

Alkalise your life

Alkalising your diet is a great way to change the way you eat in order to try and prevent chronic conditions such as cancer, arthritis, autoimmune disorders etc.  The basic principle is that you eat food that are alkaline in nature.  For example lemon juice is acidic in its raw form, but when ingested it turns to alkaline.  Red meat would be alkaline if you put litmus paper on a raw steak, but when ingested it becomes acidic in nature.  We call this acidic ash.  When food is broken down in the small intestine, it becomes either magnesium, potassium, calcium, which are alkaline minerals, or sulphates, phosphates, which are acidic.  The idea is that you want to change the tissue deep within the body to a more balanced Ph, and this helps to keep the bones strong which are mainly alkaline in nature.  Cancer is known to thrive in acidic environments and is anaerobic, which means it does not need oxygen to survive. It lives on sugar!  No wonder our high sugar lifestyles make cancer easy to thrive.

By changing our diet to a 'clean' alkaline diet, reduced sugar, dairy, wheat, red meat and alcohol we can get back to a more natural human diet. Alkaline foods such as vegetables and fruit can be eaten throughout the day.  Protein and grains need to be restricted.  So the diet is a 70/30 ratio, veg to protein/grains.  Does that make sense?  On your plate would be 10% protein, 20% grain and 70% veg.

An acidic diet would be one which was made up of high protein, processed, refined foods, along with carbonated drinks such as coke and coffee.

Cleaning up your diet is pretty easy!  Put 70% veg and fruit in your shopping basket along with whole grains such as brown rice and quinoa.  Get yourself a great cookbook, like Honestly Healthy by Natasha Corrett and off you go.  She has some fab recipes. Switch snacks to healthy ones, nuts, fruit and dark chocolate.

Acupuncture and lower back pain