Journal Gazette Times-Courier
By Nathaniel West, Staff Writer
About eight years ago, Mitch Saret was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
That's bad news for anybody. For a martial arts instructor, it's particularly devastating...
Saret reached a point where he
couldn't do one somersault, one set of jumping jacks, without
incapacitating himself for the rest of the day.
Then he got into Tai Chi.
"That seems to be my main form of
exercise," said Saret, who teaches Tai Chi at his studio in Charleston
and at the Mattoon Area Family YMCA.
"The movements are slow (and) they
build up internal energy ... These small movements of Tai Chi are
really beneficial for all sorts of ailments."
Sound like a crock?
According to several local Tai Chi
instructors like Saret, they are functioning examples of the martial
art's healing benefits. Meanwhile, modern medicine and science lend
support to Tai Chi (pronounced "TIE-CHEE") as a bona fide form of
therapy, said medical experts.
Tim Walk, who plans to teach Tai Chi
next fall at Lake Land College in Mattoon, has also been a martial arts
student and instructor for about 30 years.
That also means he's suffered a host of injuries along the way, some of them causing chronic joint problems.
He began studying Tai Chi about
three years ago. Since then, his range of motion has improved, while
his damaged joints hurt less.
"The older I get, the less physical strength I have," Walk said. "I just can't fly through the air like I used to."
A Chinese practice, Tai Chi has been
around for about 600 years. It centers around the concept of "chi"
(also spelled "qi," for you Scrabble players looking for "q" words that
don't need a "u").
According to Dr. Craig Bretz, a
chiropractor and acupuncturist from Sullivan, chi is the "vital energy"
that circulates throughout the human body along "meridians."
This is, of course, where skeptics scoff at Tai Chi and other forms of Asian medicine, like acupuncture.
"That can be (argued) for a long time," Bretz admitted.
However, he said the concept of chi
basically gels with modern physics and the theories of Albert Einstein,
who contended that all matter is made of energy. The body's nervous
system, meanwhile, functions through electricity.
So Bretz believes the idea of other
energy flows in the human body, that already works on electricity,
isn't that absurd. He also said studies have detected increased
bio-electrical fields in the hands of people who work with chi.
But for those of you looking for a more "western" medical answer to the Tai Chi question, Bretz has it.
"You're going through ranges of
motion throughout the body, and you're doing it slowly ... so you're
not causing ?impaction' that can cause arthritis and other problems,"
he said. "The more you keep your joints functioning, the better they
feel."
Why?
Because most joints have cartilage, which absorbs nutrients from circulatory fluid. "The way it feeds is by motion," Bretz said.
"The soft tissue is like a sponge, and if everything is compacted, it can't soak up nutrients."
He said Tai Chi also improves one's balance because nerves, like muscles, improve through increased usage.
"It's stimulating the nerve pathways back and forth to the brain," Bretz said.
Adrian M. Donaldson, a nationally
certified massage therapist who works for the Sarah Bush Lincoln Health
Center in Coles County, said, "I believe we all have energy inside of
us, and Tai Chi enables this energy to be balanced." |
