Chapter

22

Celebrating World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day

In This Chapter

Legendary poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote: “If we want to make something truly spectacular of our world, there is nothing whatsoever that can stop us.” Most people who practice T’ai Chi and QiGong for decades look back and realize that their lives would have been so much more constricted and less spectacular had they not discovered these mind-body tools. As the techniques help us un-grip on old perceptions of ourselves, they enable us to open to the fact that our lives offer much more potential.

Not only are you truly profound and unique, but you are holding a truly profound and unique book: the first edition of this book actually launched a world event, changing the world in a healing way. World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day, through coverage by CNN, The New York Times, The South China Morning Post, and media worldwide, has educated millions about T’ai Chi and QiGong. Therefore, this book doesn’t just “talk the talk”—it walks the walk of T’ai Chi’s expansive personal power.

Since this global phenomenon was launched, T’ai Chi has rapidly expanded throughout the world, with many leading T’ai Chi and QiGong professionals crediting World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day’s annual global health-education event as a catalyst to this rapid global expanse of awareness of these ancient mind-body tools. In 2012 media announcements of T’ai Chi’s ongoing permeation of popular culture included famed actor Keanu Reeves’ landing a contract to create a major motion picture titled “Man of T’ai Chi,” and film star Jet Li’s announced collaboration with the Chinese Wush Association to promote T’ai Chi’s benefits worldwide. See the full breadth of this massive, unprecedented worldwide event, which this book’s first edition helped create, as a video montage at Web Video Support’s World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day—A Global Healing Phenomenon, www.idiotsguides.com/taichi.

Too often in our lives we underestimate and undervalue our power as human beings. The practice of T’ai Chi and QiGong is designed to unblock the rigid limitations we hold so that the greatest potential within us can flow up and out through our relaxed mind and body.

It’s actually very unhealthy for human beings to settle for less than their greatest potential, for repression of enthusiasm and hope can diminish our health. Studies reveal that when people give of themselves to make the world a better place, it improves their physical and mental health—kind of an “instant karma,” if you will (kudos to John Lennon). And T’ai Chi and QiGong help energize and motivate us for “compassionate action,” as T’ai Chi philosophy extols us to aspire to.

Participating in World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day is a way you can expand your T’ai Chi and QiGong journey to include joining with hundreds of thousands of like-minded people worldwide each year to be part of a fun and beneficial global health and healing event known as World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day.

Bill Douglas leading what was reported as “the largest T’ai Chi exhibition outside of China” at the time. This event launched a global annual phenomenon that is now celebrated annually in hundreds of cities in over 70 nations.

Unleash the World-Altering Power Within You!

As we practice T’ai Chi, we realize it changes our lives by showing us that most of what holds us back is not “out there” in the world as much as it is in our own mental and emotional limitations in the form of rigidity we’ve constrained ourselves with unconsciously. As earlier chapters explained, this mental constraint actually affects circulation and health functions over time. But it also holds back our lives. My T’ai Chi and QiGong practice enabled me to open to large, expansive ideas, such as, for example, creating World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day, first by announcing it in the first edition of this book. Then these powerful tools gave me the stress-management techniques needed to endure the stress of actually fulfilling that dream.

OUCH!

The same T’ai Chi and QiGong energy empowered teachers and organizers in cities worldwide to envision and create massive (and smaller) World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day events locally in over 70 nations that make this global event the historic annual reality it has become. This event has since been officially proclaimed by 22 U.S. governors, and has been recognized as part of past United Nations World Health Organization, and United States Department of Health & Human Services’ events, and by mayors, legislatures, and senates of many states and nations.

The purpose of World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day is twofold: to educate millions worldwide on the profound health and healing benefits of T’ai Chi and QiGong and how they can heal society and save hundreds of billions of dollars annually, and by bringing humanity together across racial, economic, and geopolitical boundaries each year to wrap the earth in a healing wave of energy. In this way we create a vision of what is possible for the world when we focus on health and healing.

The same way T’ai Chi helps us understand that our body is not separate, isolated parts, but a flowing continuum of related networks and energy field, it also helps us understand that we are part of the world, connected to all of humanity. Again, T’ai Chi’s Taoist roots speak of this realization, of how we are an integrative part of life, and what is good for the world around us is ultimately good for us.

We are entering an extraordinary time in human history with access to modern and ancient wonders to make life better and better. We are learning that by healing ourselves, we heal the world, and vice versa. And today we have access to the best of both modern and ancient sciences. By marrying the dynamic power of our modern Western technological world’s information age with the inner peace and clarity that ancient Eastern wisdom has cultivated and refined for us over the last 2,000 years, we may be at the beginning of a wondrous human renaissance where health and clarity merge with limitless potential to create the world of our dreams.

Bookmark www.worldtaichiday.org and enjoy its free resources, and get involved in this global movement for health and healing. Encourage friends and family to utilize the many free resources there, where they can sign up for a free email newsletter that offers breaking medical research on T’ai Chi and QiGong, free tutorials, healthy and tasty recipes, and essays on how to get the most out of your T’ai Chi and QiGong journey.

Photos of Past World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day Events

The motto of World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day is “One World … One Breath.” Following are a small sampling of the spectacular human art that is World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day. Find past event photos from nearly 70 nations at the Photo Video Gallery of www.WorldTaiChiDay.org.

“One World … One Breath,” the official motto of World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day, written in 34 different languages.

This WTCQD event was sponsored by the Hong Kong Chinese Martial Arts Association. (Photo courtesy of World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day event organizers in Hong Kong.)

(Photo courtesy of World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day event organizers in Perth Australia.)

(Photo courtesy of World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day event organizers in Niteroi, Brazil.)

The University of California at Irvine, in conjunction with Professor Shin Lin, holds annual WTCQD events at UCI. (Photo courtesy of World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day event organizers in Irvine, California.)

(Photo courtesy of World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day event organizers in San Salvador, El Salvador.)

(Photo courtesy of World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day event organizers in Capetown, South Africa.)

(Photo courtesy of World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day event organizers in Cheam, United Kingdom.)

(Photo courtesy of World T’ai Chi and QiGong Day event organizers in Maracay, Venezuela.)

The Least You Need to Know