What we’re about
We practice Tai Chi at least one time a week. There are many opportunities to do so as our teacher holds classes on Sunday mornings and also on Thursday evenings in New Haven at Mactivity Gym, on Tuesday evenings in Northford and on Wednesday evenings at a private residence. Tai chi promotes health, stretching, mindfulness and relaxation. Tai chi lowers your blood pressure and improves your flexibility leading to better health for you. I am Greg Gibson, I am the manager of the classes and I find tai chi very relaxing, and surprisingly since the moves are so graceful and slow, to be a very good work out! My knees no longer hurt, my flexibility is much better, I am definitely stronger, and best of all, my kids are enjoying a happier and less stressed out Dad. In class we constantly review the basics and build with one new move each week. There is no pressure to learn this quickly; the whole point of this is to promote positive energy and to have a calm mental state. Here is a video of the master our teacher Rich studied under for 10 years. Our teacher Rich has been studying Tai Chi for over 20 years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtHoltrsnoM It takes about 6 weeks of classes to learn the movements comprising the first 30 seconds of this video. Each week we do quite a few warm up exercises and talk about what we are doing before we practice what is called the "form" - this video shows the entire "24 form".
A Message from out Coach, Richard Dicine: There are five major recognized styles of tai chi chuan which are as follows: 1. Chen style; 2. Yang style; 3. Sun style; 4. Wu style; 5. Wu/hao style; I have studied all families of tai chi and I have won several gold metals at US competitions. At the Tuesday night class we are doing Hunyuan which means (mixture of) which I feel is closer to nature and encompasses a little bit of each. The family styles are classical and very rigid. Hunyuan is Dynamic and changes with many different body stiles. In the united states this makes better sense since we have such a rich mixture of cultures. So for big or small short or tall anyone can enjoy the benefits of Hunyuan Tai Chi. In the Thursday class we study the Yang family style. On weekend mornings, many different forms are practiced.
