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A car hit drummer and musician Alan Callaway one morning as he was biking down Mission Street.
On impact, he flew over the handlebars as the back wheel of the bicycle shot in the opposite direction. His left hand hit the ground first, followed by his right and his helmet-less head as the driver sped away. Along with head trauma, Callaway broke his ribs and tore all his shoulder tendons.
Today, five years later, Callaway is still drumming, biking and moving. Already injured by several previous car accidents, he fully recovered from the hit-and-run without any operations or medication. He credits his remarkable recovery to acupuncture and tai chi, the dance-like exercise most associate with rheumatic old folks in the park.
Callaway’s acupuncturist suggested he try tai chi to aid in the healing process. His fascination with martial arts led him to give it a try. After practicing tai chi for three years at Spreckels Lake in Golden Gate Park with tai chi master Bill Chin, who has been teaching the art for over 30 years, Callaway recovered completely.
“My shoulders and ribs healed,” Callaway said. “When I first started tai chi, I couldn’t lift my arm. It was all torn up, but eventually I got it together. I love it, so I’ve been practicing every day for years now.”
Tai chi is a Chinese martial art founded on Daoist principles. Its slow and gentle movements categorize it as an internal or “soft-style” martial art. Tai chi stresses relaxation, focus, deep breathing and, most importantly, stable, balanced movements.
The precise founder of tai chi is uncertain, but legend holds that Daoist Zhang San Feng developed the martial art during the Ming Dynasty by integrating Daoist breathing exercises and Shaolin martial arts, according to tai chi master Doc Fai Wong, author of Tai Chi Chuan’s Internal Secrets. Other styles developed from Zhang’s style of tai chi, the first being Chen, named after the surname of its founder. After secretly studying Chen, a man named Yang mastered Chen-style tai chi, developed his own style and spread it throughout China. Yang’s students then developed their own styles, giving the Wu, Hao and Sun styles today.
Tai chi is more than an exercise and is reshaping the lives of many Americans, like Callaway, who are committed to the practice.
Because it is less vigorous than other exercises, tai chi is an excellent way for elders to keep fit. By improving balance, it may also help prevent dangerous falls, according to a study in the 2003 Journal of the American Geriatric Society.
A different study conducted at the University of California at Irvine (UCI) in 2004 showed that practicing tai chi increases blood and qi circulation (the vital energy that produces blood, according to Chinese medicine), indicated by blood flow, which may account for its reputed therapeutic effects on arthritis and back pain.
For retired Lowell English teacher and tai chi practitioner Irving Rothstein, tai chi is simply a miracle. Rothstein suffered from spinal stenosis, a chronic condition in which certain vertebral discs pinch on nerves and radiate pain into the back and neck. Bending down or turning caused excruciating pain, and eventually, the pain became constant. Doctors suggested either surgery or codeine. Rothstein reluctantly took the codeine, and the days after were lethargic and despairing.
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Salvation came in 1976 when Rothstein met Fong Ha, a fellow teacher at the high school where he was working. Ha recommended chiropractic therapy and tai chi as a long-term solution. Though skeptical at first, Rothstein realized it was either tai chi or painkillers forever. He chose tai chi.
Thirty years later, Rothstein, still faithfully practicing tai chi, is relatively pain-free and enjoying life again. “I’m mobile, and I’m 72,” he said. “Tai chi has benefited my focus and my patience. It’s become a lifestyle.”
Younger people, who are not currently in near-death situations or suffering from chronic pain, can also benefit from tai chi, which was exactly why Rothstein started a tai chi club at Lowell in 1991, though the club faded away after its members graduated several years later.
“I’ve noticed a lot of kids at Lowell with heavy backpacks,” he said. “I’ve seen kids bent over double. That was my big reason to start the club. These kids are going to have all kinds of (back) problems.”
Teens can also benefit from the relaxation and stress relief that tai chi offers.
Twenty-five percent of teens sleep seven hours or less each night, when a minimum 8.5 hours is needed for healthy development, according to Dispatch teen health magazine.
“Lowell is very stressful,” sophomore and Lowell Golden Gate Tai Chi Club member Rusty Zhu said. “I’ve been getting a lot less sleep, and I’m becoming forgetful.”
Class of 2006 alumnus Sangin Yuan, another tai chi club member, agreed. “I get light-headed and dizzy sometimes,” she said. Both Zhu and Yuan noted that tai chi helps clear their minds and reduce stress.
By encouraging focus and relaxation, tai chi can provide deep rest and sharpen the mind simultaneously, according to the UCI study on the mind-body effects of tai chi.
The study also found that tai chi had immune-boosting, anti-depressant and even weight-loss effects. Shin Lin, Ph.D., a conductor of the study, said the repetitive movements in tai chi warm-up exercises may increase production of serotonin, which alleviates depression and promotes better sleep.
He also said that tai chi reduces the immunosuppressive stress hormones cortisol and interleukin 10, while increasing the production of interleukin 6, which breaks down fat and helps maintain a healthy weight, despite its gentle nature.
At a visit to the tai chi club in May, tai chi master and class of ’67 Lowell alumnus Terry Hall said that teen stress is due to an imbalanced lifestyle. “For most, being off balance is ‘normal,’” he said. “Going to this school, under the pressure that you’re under, being stressed and worrying about grades is ‘normal,’ so what has become ‘normal’ for students here is imbalanced. Tai chi tries to balance it out.
“The best thing to do is maintain total balance in life, physical as well as emotional balance. But to emotionally balance your life is difficult to do. It’s hard to control your emotions, but the easiest thing to control is your body. If I asked you to stand, you could stand. If I asked you to sit, you could sit.
“The Dao says that everything is interrelated. If you adjust one thing, everything will be affected. Therefore, if you balance your body physically, you will be better balanced emotionally and spiritually.”
As one of Hall’s and Chin’s students, I have learned the importance of moderation in everything. Like the Arctic sun that constantly bounces from extreme to extreme, never setting in the summer and then never rising in the winter, humans too will one day cease to rise without sufficient rest. So when I must choose between an eighth class or sleep, the balanced decision is clear.
Seeing others struggling with everyday school life, like myself, I founded the tai chi club to let them in on my secret—to help them guard their health and find balance.
This balance is exactly what serious practitioners aim for—extending tai chi to life.
“Tai chi has helped me so much,” tai chi practitioner Patty Maloney said. “It’s changed who I am. I’m much more patient. I don’t get as angry as quickly, and during very difficult times, tai chi helped me to remember that there’s more to life than those difficult times.”
For the curious, there’s no need to pay high prices for tai chi instruction in a studio. Many local parks, like Golden Gate Park, offer free lessons on weekends. Give them a try, and see which one you like.
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