by Alan Bell of the Scottish Centre for Personal Safety

We are lucky enough to now have two Tai Chi classes running in our Barony St John Centre in Ardrossan.

Tai Chi is recognised by the Chinese Government and many Health Institutes around the world as a form of exercise that offers one of the greatest all-round benefits to health.

In fact, Tai Chi is now being offered in various hospitals and centres throughout NHS Scotland.

You may well know about our Saturday morning Tai Chi class. Instructor Mhairi McGowan has been running the class for a number of years now.

She is a qualified Level 2 Tai Chi instructor under Grandmaster Liming Yue of the Tai Chi Centre UK and her class is on every Saturday from 10.30am – 11.30am and costs only £5 with your first class free.

Mhairi teaches Chen-style Tai Chi (Taijiquan) which is a sequence of dynamic movements that combine soft and hard with fast and slow actions, in a balanced and natural way.

During practice the body remains relaxed with the practitioners’ consciousness, breathing and actions all closely connected.

These unique features enhance benefits to health, fitness, and weight-loss and are just a few of the reasons why so many people, regardless of age and level of fitness, regularly practice Chen-style Tai Chi throughout the world today.

Our second class is newly started and is on every second Sunday from 12 noon to 1.15pm with the next class being Sunday, May 1.

It is run by Instructor Bob Lowey who teaches Taijiquan and Qigong (pronounced – Chee Gong).

People get mixed up between Taijiquan and Qigong because they both consist of slow repetitive movements but a trained eye will notice the difference as the 13 postures must be integral to a Taijiquan practitioner’s form.

Simply speaking, the difference between the two is that Qigong covers various internal training exercises for health and longevity, while Taijiquan is one of the famous branches of traditional Chinese martial art, albeit mostly practised today for its health benefits (due to its internal training).

Whereas Taijiquan is a slow, repetitive series of movements based on martial art defence and attacks (Bob teaches anything between 24 to 108 varied postures which, when broken down, can lead to some 150 – 200 movements based on 13 classical martial art postures, depending on style – Wudang, Wu, Chen, Sun, Li, Yang, Cheng man Ching), Qigong is solely focused on the maintenance of body, mind and spirit balance and comes from six main roots – Buddhist, Taoist, Confucianist, Medical, Martial (internal Hard Qigong) and Ethnic.

Qigong goes back to the Yellow Emperor some 3000 years ago and is the basis of traditional Chinese medicine.

It is a mind-body and inner self practice that improves the practitioner’s mental and physical health by certain movements, breathing techniques, and focus.

Bob is an instructor with Qigongtauk (Qigong Teachers Association of the United Kingdom) which is an off-shoot of the 7 Stars School of Taijiquan established in 1986 and recognized by the TCUGB and BCCMA.

For further details or information on Bob’s class, please contact: Qigongtauk@btinternet.com

We hope to see you at one or both of these wonderful classes and I look forward to highlighting other classes at our Barony St John Centre in the near future.

If you would like to know more about the other local groups who use our facilities or the work we do as a charity, visit www.ScotCPS.org.uk or search for ScotCPS on your social media pages.

Or if you would like to hear of the renovations and discoveries we have made in the former Barony St. John’s church hall building, check out my blog at www.ardrossman.wordpress.com

Until next time, stay safe.