I wrote an article on how one could use Yi Quan and Focused Muscular Tension exercises for prevention and rehabilitation.
Take Care
Patrick
Before going into the main topic, I want to explicitly state that Yi Quan is a Martial Art and thus has combative aspects. Because of its historical ties to meditative and health traditions, it is also a very valuable art for the preservation of health. Just because the health and therapeutic aspect are emphasized in this article, does not mean that the combative side should be excluded or looked down upon.
One of my main interests is the application of alternative body/movement practices in a therapeutic and preventive context. ´Alternative` does not refer to non-scientific or esoteric concepts (such as Qi, prana or chakras) rather to body/movement practices that have a different paradigm or mind-set than mainstream practices and are therefore less researched by the scientific community – so exact knowledge on the effects are scarce. What we can do is use the already available knowledge of exercise/health and sport science and apply it to the movement art in question and see how it can be used to enhance one’s health.
One can find a lot of anecdotal evidence for the efficacy of Internal Martial Arts such as Yi Quan for improving one´s health. There are even a few studies how for example Tai Ji Quan can reduce the risk for falls among the elderly (Gallant, Tartaglia, Hardman, & Burke, 2017; Zhao, Chung, & Tong, 2017) or how Tai JI Quan reduces depression (Yeung et al., 2017) and so on. To me, these studies are useful but they are not researching what I am really interested in. Here Tai Ji Quan is mere a form of a Choreography with specific characteristics (i.e. a choreography with shifting the weight from one leg to the other with a few specific coordinative challenges, like moving the hands in a specific manner). What I find particularly interesting in Yi Quan is not the Choreography of the movements, but the approach and method to learn, feel and analyse the movement. Its use of awareness to understand the structure of body and how force is applied through it. First, when we talk about how Yi Quan can improve one´s health, it must be explained what “health” is.
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