Faulk TaiChi

Learn the beautiful, flowing movements for health and relaxation.

It’s Spring – Get on Your Walking Shoes

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For those of us in the Midwest, spring can’t come soon enough. We have more light in our days and the promise of warmer temperatures to melt the lingering snow that lingers on our streets. I like having seasons and the anticipation this time of year in palatable. And now we are here, the Spring Equinox, which has equal time of daylight and darkness. Balance exists between light and dark and then the light will predominate.

In this time of light and dark balance in our days, it is good for us to examine our own balance. Balance in our doing and being, in our waking and sleeping and increasing our resolve to keep our bodies and mind active and strong. It is the time for walking outside, enjoying the warmer heat from the sun, keeping our bodies healthy through our natural gift or walking. We can focus this time on walking to maintain and increase our balance, important at any age.

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I’ve been thinking about walking a lot lately. One reason is social media has been filled with videos on walking, specifically on promoting Tai Chi Walking. Tai Chi Walking for Losing Belly Fat, or for building strong muscles or for weight loss in just 10 minutes a day. These are misleading and seem to be taking advantage of the “Tai Chi” name, known to have many benefits and is gentle, to draw people in, and in some cases take their money.

In February “The New York Times” published an article “The Very Real Benefits of Tai Chi Walking.” Why would a major newspaper see Tai Chi as newsworthy? It might be recognition of misinformation in the public arena about the quick and misleading claims about this practice. It is an accurate, well-researched article quoting professionals who gave accurate information about Tai Chi and the walking practice.

Several of my students asked me if I had seen the ads and videos. Yes, and I have looked at more. No disclaimers. No precautions for safety and wild claims that 5 or 10 minutes a day of their practice will change your life. We know better. For 27 years I have included Tai Chi walking as part of every class I have taught. It is personally important to me because I used Tai Chi walking to regain my strength and ability to walk when my legs were weak and not totally in my control from symptoms of MS. This was years before I started teaching. The key is to have proper body alignment, soft knees and focus on putting 100% of your weight on the standing leg before picking up the other one. This focused practice can increase leg strength, stability and balance, but it takes a long time, sometimes years.

Go get your walking shoes and get out the door, down the street, through a park, on the walkway by the lake. Pay attention to the sunshine warming temperatures and the celebrate your ability to walk.

What Gives you Joy?

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With many hours of darkness in our winter days, it’s the time of year that many focus on light that will be coming in the weeks ahead. Whether or not you are part of a religious tradition that celebrates light that will come in the darkness, a common topic of conversation of many right now is counting the days until winter Solstice, knowing that point marks the day that dark and light balance and then slowly the light in our days will increase.

In these days of grey skies, cold temperatures and snow for those of us in northern U.S. climates , and for you in climates with sun and warmth, what gives you joy? Many of the non-political stories, music, ads, movies right now are light and play to our desire for cheer, friendship, traditions, baking seasonal treats, loving and feeling loved.

Hopefully, we are not so busy with our to-do lists that we miss the moments — twinkling lights, a grandchild’s performance, big, beautiful snowflakes, coffee with a friend, a colorful bird, working to provide meals for others.

Joy is often spontaneous, unexpected. We need to be open. If our minds are filled with lists, thinking about a past event that upset us, worrying how we will get everything done before company comes in a few days, we may miss our moment of joy. We need to take time to notice what is around us right now. Pay attention. Go look at the holiday lights. Be intentional.

In my Tai Chi classes, I ask students to try to keep their attention in the room as much as possible. Why? Our minds wander; chatter fills our heads and can take us miles away from the classroom we are standing in. I focus our gentle Tai Chi moves on relaxing and focusing on the moment, paying attention to where we are standing, how we are standing, feeling our body alignment come to a center point. When our minds wander, we miss the paying attention and likely can miss a wonderful moment of calmness and relaxation. I think those moments of joy come when we stop, focus on the moment and take in the wonderful feeling of joy. Volunteering our time to help others, with transportation to a medical appointment, feeding those in need, visiting a homebound friend, all allow us to focus on the moment when we forget ourselves in order to help others.

I feel joy in the midst of moving my energy with my students through Tai Chi. We are freely sharing with each other bringing calm to the moment and each other. A gift for which I am grateful.

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What gives us joy cannot be bought, bartered or manufactured. It comes to us, often unexpected. It’s an emotion and a gift that is part of the best of being human.

What has brought you joy recently?

Love Fall Colors

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Yellow, red and orange leaves captivate our attention. We stop on our walk to look. We drive on a Sunday afternoon to see nature’s vivid statement that autumn is here. Some of us visit New Hampshire or Vermont to see the leaves. They draw us there, to stop, look, admire and take photos.

The hours of daylight are decreasing; the temperatures are cooler so we put on our jackets. And many of the trees show us vividly that we are in the midst of change.

These photos are from northern Minnesota a few weeks ago, in the early stages of change. It is so calming to stare at the trees doing their thing. Good for the soul. They remind me of being a child in northern Illinois, when we raked leaves into big piles. I would run and jump into the pile scattering the leaves. Mom let my brother, sister and gather leaves with our little rakes. She made it fun and we loved it. And we learned to pay attention and admire the fall leaves.

Today it’s fun to stop and look because the trees and their leaves don’t disappoint.

Don’t forget the wildflowers, with their little purple or yellow flowers doing their thing. Stop. Pay attention. Enjoy the remarkable changes nature is offering us free. If we just look