The spine is life. Tai Chi is an exercise of inner and outer movement, fluid and rhythmic, which acts on awareness, balance. On existence and therefore on the back, because body and interiority are one .
Let's see in detail how tai chi is in the back, how it is useful for the column and how to stem the most common posture defects.
The correct posture in tai chi
A single Tai Chi lesson is nothing but a grain in the sand. Whoever receives the lesson should first take care to inform the teacher or teacher about possible traumas, physical problems, serious joint problems, pathologies or surgical operations .
It is very likely that the learner asks for information before the lesson begins. It is perhaps more the case to say that this information is useful to the teacher, because a teacher will notice it without words.
A master knows, for example, that the upper dorsal area is related to lungs, bronchi and respiratory functions; the median and lumbar areas of the back in traditional Chinese medicine are connected to the stomach, pancreas and their functions, with duodenes and kidneys. Or that the region immediately above the hips is correlated with the transverse colon and with the highest portion of the small intestine. For the umbilical back called "a barre", ie the pain is transverse and localized in the lower parts of the back. For example, in Chinese medicine, a low back pain in the lower back has to do with the energy of the kidney, an energy malfunction.
A master may not even be an acupuncturist, but it is easy to know the path of the Main Channels and it is very likely that in a person's posture he reads his soul, as if it were an open book. But mastery is a moving target and the masters are rare beasts; it is necessary for a student to search deeply and for a teacher to never consider himself as such.
Tin Pu, the correct basic posture in Tai chi
In tai chi achieving a correct basic posture ( Tin Pu ) means:
- Adhere with feet on the ground, parallel
- Relax the hips
- Stretch the back (with abdomen relaxation)
- Relax the pectoral muscles.
- Let go of your wrists
- Bring your chin back slightly
There are positions of Yi Quan to approach this correct posture and prepare for some basic techniques of tai chi, the form or the Push with the hands ( Tui shou ) or the Qi gong or Chi Kung.
Back pain and kidneys: what correlation?
Positive effects of tai chi on the back
The waves of the back already improve at a very simple first impact that we can trivially call a conscious gesture. Ninth case, beginners start with the tai chi step. Re-start to walk. Re-start by juggling the weight on the legs or, as they say, bringing the belly towards the knee that goes in the chosen direction. All with a series of typical Taoist evocative images, for example "putting the boat in the water" .
Initial difficulties are given by the rigidity in the first executions. This a good teacher puts it into account. There the dance enters the variable that varies everything: breathing . Original act that brings us back to ourselves and immediately catapults us out, where energy flows everywhere, in the same way as inside. Observing the dynamics of the breath is a very relaxing and cognitive act .
Then, slowly it goes into alignment . And the body looks for it alone. You learn to move slowly by lowering your center of gravity and loosening your low back pain. In "Thirteen chapters on T'ai-Chi Ch'uan" the immense master of painting and calligraphy, tai chi chuan, as well as renowned physician and poet, creator of outdated visions Cheng Man-ch'ing declares:
When in motion, our posture should be balanced, erect, uniform and regular . These four words are very well known, but very difficult to perform. You can be loose and check all directions only when you are balanced and erect. Our movement can be one without any emptiness only when we are uniform and regular . This is what the classics of T'ai Chi Chuan mean by: "You're erect and balanced", "Energy moves like silk spinning" and so on. If you don't start working from these four words, it won't be a real art.
Finally, an important clarification: tai chi is not started to treat back pain. This immense practice is not approached with a goal to be achieved at any cost. You can have an orienting idea of how you want to set the route, but you don't define it in detail and with rigidity before you even leave. How not to eat well to lose weight. We eat well because we love each other. We move and try to be in tune with and in our bodies because we were born to do it.
