Patrick Baio said many of his tai chi and chi gung students have trained under him for years, a testament to the benefits people experience from practicing these ancient forms of martial arts as exercise. (Jim Slonoff photo)
What are the benefits of chi gung and tai chi?
Serving cups of tea. Stepping on melting ice.
Gentle actions, but they can be keenly therapeutic when incorporated into the ancient practices of chi gung and tai chi.
This summer instructor Patrick Baio has been teaching a 90-minute Saturday morning course on these systems of movements and body postures at The Community House (see Page 17 for details).
Baio said the program is for all ages, but most students are seniors.
"A lot of this stuff has to do with building up your bone strength," he said of the transitions from one posture to another through coordinated motions, unlike the static poses of yoga.
Improved vertical skeletal alignment, breathing and blood circulation are also touted benefits.
Many people are familiar with tai chi - formerly called tai chi chuan - from popular media, but chi gung, sometimes rendered "qigong," is less known.
As the strains of a traditional Chinese folk melody play, students practice movements like extending their foot slowly and placing it down gingerly before following with the rest of the body.
"We use our toe, because that's delicate," he said, demonstrating another technique of shaping one's hand like a "crane's beak" to activate different muscles. "If you're doing these soft movements, you develop skill."
A 71-year-old himself, Baio began his martial arts journey more than a half-century ago to ward off neighborhood ruffians.
Aside from external defense, the effects had a more profound internal impact on the health issues from which he was suffering.
"I studied with (my kung fu master) for three years and then my blood condition went dormant, my heart condition went away," he said.
Baio would make annual trips to China for one- or two-month training programs that he would then leverage for his mostly adolescent students back home.
He related being troubled visiting his mom in a nursing home in 1990s due to the lack of activity among many residents. He saw a new opportunity to use his skills.
"I knew all this stuff and that's how I started teaching seniors."
He said the aesthetic, slow-paced quality of the Chinese exercises make them attractive to the older set.
"They're art and they're a science," Baio said. "Instead of just doing push-ups and sit-ups, you're doing all these movements, shifting back and forth. If you do it slowly, you associate calmness with your moves."
Originally intended for combat, the practices can be deployed at higher speed for such use.
Baio said even those bedridden or in a chair can take advantage of the salutary effects.
"They can lie down and do the arm movements or sit on the edge of their hospital bed," he said. "Chair exercise is good because it still promotes vertical skeletal alignment. It develops your balance."
Baio soon will begin teaching on Tuesdays and Thursdays and encouraged the curious to check it out.
"I'll be able to make you get healthier - as long as you show up," he quipped.
- by Ken Knutson
