Tai Ji Quan practise in Parkinson disease
Prof. Roberto Benetti

The approach to this topic is that there are no “ill people” but individuals with a greater or lower freedom of movement or of elaboration, due to impediments of internal or external nature, which limit the practise of any discipline.
Starting from these preliminary remarks, the discipline you are practising has to be precisely defined, by adapting its contents and application to the human and social context.

Tai Ji Quan is a Martial Art of the Chinese tradition, where for Art we mean to aim at a perfection of the gesture and for Martial we mean the development of a natural self discipline first of all related to the body, then emotional-perceptive and finally mental-spiritual. Tai Ji is the principle originating the two opposites Yin and Yang; Quan is the martial application of the Tai Ji principle. The play of the opposites is always present in Tai Ji Quan: hard and soft, movement and quietness, speed and slowness harmoniously alternate in a continuous change.
Tai Ji Quan is an integrated system of training regarding the physical, energetic and mental aspect, performing its beneficial effects at physical level by loosening the joints and strengthening the body, at energetic level by developing a greater internal vigour and at mental level by increasing the ability to attention and concentration.

The application of a rigorous and scientific method in teaching and in the transmission of Tai Ji Quan enables to grasp and elaborate the principle of interior lack of harmony in order to be later able, through appropriate guided exercises, to “adjust” and “set” your man-system so as to get closer and closer to the harmony of the situations in body movement and not only.

The basic principle in Tai Ji movement concerns the concept of sphericity (or roundness) of the gesture, i.e. the development in the space of any body movement. The fundamental exercises (Nei Gong in Chinese can be translated as “internal work” or “aware movement”) have been studied according to a systemic vision of the sphere: presence of a central axis, development around this of the three dimensional layers in the space and related pairs of forces: up-down, front-back, right-left.

The methodical application in each body part of this principle slowly builds up the process of awareness of the gesture. You move therefore from the logic of the product or of the result (to know how to make a gesture, an exercise) to the logic of process (knowledge of the process of how to perform the gesture and understand its correctness based on the principle of polarity) in order to develop a greater awareness of one’s own being.

This approach enables to leave the frustrating logic not to be able to command one’s own body when performing a certain movement, typical situation of the Parkinson sick person, and by the logic of the process, i.e. by small steps, to reach a correct result, parameterised to one’s possibilities of the moment.
The slow gesture, measured and characterised by a listening attitude, typical of Tai Ji, makes possible a “mapping” of one’s own integrated system body-energy-mind, by the repetition of body movements developing with opposing powers in the three fundamental planes.

Each class goes through all above mentioned criteria by paying attention to two fundamental moments: aware movement suitable for everybody, even for those who have ambulation problems and the application of the exercises in movement by the walking coming from the Tai Ji Quan movements, which combined together build the so-called “Form”. At the end of each group of classes (approx. once a month) simple exercises are suggested to be performed individually without contraindications.

The main benefits of this approach are:

• Improvement of overall posture
• Better perception of the forces both in static stance and in movement
• Development of a greater awareness
• Higher confidence when moving in the space
• Better balance or reduced chances to lose it
• Higher self-esteem
• Lower sense of handicap
• Higher mental clarity

But a good discipline is not enough to reach good results with Tai Ji Quan. You need:

• Prepared and qualified teachers both under a technical and a methodological-teaching point of view
• Good relational abilities in specific teaching rooms
• Scientific approach to the discipline
• Patience with yourself and firmness when applying the Tai Ji Quan principles
• Clarity of speech and ability to communicate by metaphors

The verbal speech used during lessons has to stimulate the aware listening and performing ability of the movement. Important for the sick person is not “to remember” movements or a drill, but “to fix” the Principles which are the base of the fundamental movements of the human body in the space so as to make them integral part (“normal”) in one’s daily life.