Great River T'ai Chi Celebrates 40 Years!

Great River T’ai Chi Celebrates Forty Years

T’ai chi, the multifaceted Chinese exercise, has become quite mainstream in the forty years since Great River T’ai Chi began offering classes in Minneapolis. Great River T’ai Chi has offered classes at all levels in the Twin Cities since 1979, sharing it with thousands of students.

To celebrate their 40th anniversary, Great River T’ai Chi is holding a free Open House, Sunday, September 8, from 6:00–8:00 p.m. at St. Luke's Episcopal Church, 4557 Colfax Ave South, in Minneapolis, near Lake Harriet. The evening will feature a performance of traditional Chinese guzheng music by Jarrelle Barton, a recipient of the Minnesota Emerging Composer Award and an Anderson Center residency. This will be followed by t’ai chi demonstrations, refreshments, and movies.

Study after study has shown T'ai Chi's health benefits for balance, walking, posture, and relaxation. “T’ai chi is the perfect antidote for modern life. It’s an intriguing practice that is part wellness exercise, part mindfulness, and part martial art,” explained founder and director Barbara Davis. “We like to focus on how to use its principles of relaxation and alignment in daily life.”

“T’ai chi has taken us around the world,” Davis explained. Both teachers studied with a master in Taiwan, as well as in Colorado and New York City with followers of the famous artist and t’ai chi master Cheng Man-ch’ing (1902–1975). Davis went on to study Chinese language and history, authoring two books on t’ai chi ch’uan (also known as taijiquan) and editing the quarterly Taijiquan Journal.

Davis and her associate Cheryl Powers have also taught at the University of Minnesota, Macalester College, Minnesota State University in Mankato, the Minnesota College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (now part of Northwestern Health Sciences University), Tasks Unlimited, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Honeywell, Target, Minnesota Nursing Association, and YWCAs of Duluth, Minneapolis, and Mankato.

For more information, visit http://www.greatrivertaichi.wordpress.com

Tai Chi for Fall Prevention

"Minnesota has the nation’s fourth-highest rate of fall-related deaths," the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported in a recent article about how Tai Chi can prevent falls. Many studies have shown that Tai Chi helps improves many aspects of health, mobility, and balance. State commissioners of health and human services are seen here, following along in a training workshop.

Tai Chi participants can note a dramatic and quick improvement in balance and mobility by practicing even just the basics. Tai Chi is very multi-faceted, and can serve as a mindfulness exercise, as well as a martial art. See Great River's current schedule below for information on beginners classes.

Tai Chi: Your Gateway to Health

Tai Chi for health? You betcha: balance, relaxation, lower blood pressure, coordination...the list goes on. Now here's what one article says: "Studies have long shown that tai chi improves balance. Now research demonstrates it may also protect the area of the brain responsible for the sense of touch. In a recent Harvard study, 50- to 60-year-olds who did tai chi had a more acute sense of feeling in their fingertips, equivalent to that of people nearly half their age."("The brain-power workout" India Today 9/16/09).

So here's your chance to try it out: Great River T'ai Chi will be offering a beginner's class starting this Sunday, September 20th, from 7-8 pm. Let this class be your gateway to health! Ten weeks for only $140. Register at door. New students will be admitted through mid-October; tuition will be pro-rated.

Great River has been offering tai chi classes for 30 years!
1940 Hennepin Av. S. 2F (at Franklin), Mpls.
For further information, call 612-822-5760.

Great River Director Article Published

Great River T'ai Chi Ch'uan's director Barbara Davis writes about the nature of t'ai chi in this month's issue of the Edge Magazine. She writes: "T’ai chi creates a space not just of one individual’s internal being, but rather, at the same moment, you are in a connection beyond your self, to the room you’re in, to the people around, to the world outside." You can read the complete article online, or pick up a copy at Present Moment, Tao Foods, The Wedge, or other locations throughout the Twin Cities and Minnesota. Davis was a participant in the International Taiji Symposium in Nashville this summer.