American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis

Bruce Eads & David M. Wark
27 Sep 2018

Abstract

Alert hypnosis has a growing body of evidence to support its use in resolving trauma symptoms. There is also research to support the use of Tai Chi in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Integrating alert hypnosis with Tai Chi movements offers the potential to further the benefits of both approaches. Patients have an opportunity to work toward their desired goals using hypnotic techniques to embody targeted changes both in session and outside the office. Providers get behavioural information about the physical and emotional states in the patient. This overlap provides an advanced platform for integrated clinical work, supporting a closer integration of curative processes.

The full text will be available to registered participants of the conference “Tai Chi, Wushu & Qigong in Today’s World 2019” which is to be announced shortly. Permission to distribute the article “Alert Hypnosis With Tai Chi Movement for Trauma Resolution” published in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis; Volume 61, 2018; Issue 2; pp. 173-184, was granted by the original publisher, the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis (ASCH) for the purpose of this event.

About the Authors

Bruce Eads

Bruce is a social worker from Salisbury, North Carolina, USA. He says, “Providing clinical therapies for recently returning combat Veterans to allow them the best opportunity we can develop to enjoy success in the life they fought for. No job has ever been so intense nor more worthwhile“.

 

 

David M.Wark, PhD

David’s professional life has revolved around his career as a Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA), with a particular and longtime interest in hypnosis. He has been on the forefront of teaching the world the array of psychological and medical goals that can be achieved using the tools that he has helped develop.
(https://mzion.org/homz-blog/david-3/)

To find out more, see the Interview with Dr Wark.

International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology

Takashi Shimazaki et al 

11 September 2018

Abstract

In cross-sectional studies, we examined the long-term practice effects of QiGong exercise on perceived health and quality of life (QoL) in middle-aged (over 50 years) Japanese individuals. In Study 1, Japanese adults (n = 320) who practised QiGong responded to a questionnaire concerning the perceived benefits of QiGong practice and QoL. In Study 2, we collected data from QiGong participants who attended a QiGongconference (n = 799). Participants in Study 1 perceived that QiGong affords physical, psychological, and social benefits and QiGong duration in years correlated strongly with QoL. In Study 2, those who practised QiGong for 0–3 years vs. 13+ years reported a greater likelihood of perceived palpitation, insomnia, a lack of vigour, and attention deficit (odd ratios 1.56–2.60, all p < .01) with similar trends for joint pain, depression, and forgetfulness. QiGong practice for 13+ vs. 0–3 years reduced perception of physical fatigue, poor physical health, joint pain, insomnia, problems with attention, forgetfulness, and anger (odd ratios 1.95–2.85, all p < .05). However, there were no differences in the effects between other practice periods (p > .05). QiGong is a multi-component form of physical activity, which – if practised for prolonged periods – affords motor, cognitive, social, and QoL benefits.

About the Author

Takashi Shimazaki
PhD, Sophia University, Department of Health & Physical Education, Faculty of Humanities
Tokyo, Japan

As an ancient Chinese practice, tai chi may seem foreign and even intimidating. Perhaps your only experience with tai chi is watching video clips or seeing photos of large groups of Chinese people doing tai chi in parks—a rare occurrence in the United States. Only about 1% of the U.S. population, or about 3.65 million Americans, reported doing tai chi in 2015. That means a lot of Americans are missing out on myriad benefits that tai chi has to offer. The goal of this report is to make tai chi more familiar, more accessible, and easy to practice regularly—even right in your living room.

Mind-body exercises, such as tai chi and yoga, have been gaining popularity over the past few decades. This is not surprising, given the increasing number of studies on the positive effects of these gentler forms of exercise—everything from lowering blood pressure and managing depression to building strength and improving balance. There is even evidence that tai chi may help you live a longer, more vital life.

For roughly two decades, I’ve been working to bridge the gap between the practice and the science of tai chi and to integrate it into Western health care. By day, I am a medical researcher at Harvard Medical School, and by night, I am a community-based tai chi instructor.
My interest in tai chi grew out of a passion for sports and martial arts that started when I was in high school. It was during that time that I also became interested in science, which led me to study human ecology and get a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from Harvard University. But it wasn’t until a trip to China in 2000 that my two worlds came together, and I made a major career shift, ultimately resulting in my current position as research director for the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, which is jointly based at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

In my role as a scientist, I focus on objective, rigorous scientific research to understand what works, what doesn’t work, what is safe, and what offers promise to help people. Yet while I use research and science to inform my personal tai chi practice and the classes I teach, I must suspend pure rational thinking at times in order to get the most out of my practice. Tai chi and other meditative arts include tapping into intuition and imagination, processes less understood by science. In this report, I’ve brought these two worlds together to introduce you to tai chi and give you a program so you can begin practicing this gentle, mind-body exercise today.

Prepared by the editors of the Harvard Health Publishing in consultation with Peter M. Wayne, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Director of Research, Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. 45 pages. (2018)

https://www.health.harvard.edu/exercise-and-fitness/an-introduction-to-tai-chi

by Brian Corless

In the March, 2017 edition of the Tai Chi Association of Australia newsletter I wrote about the benefits of tai chi chuan for mental health and commented on published survey data from the USA by Dr. Romy Lauche* and colleagues (2016) which highlighted differences in U.S. participation rates between yoga and tai chi. At the time I noted that similar rates on participation for tai chi in Australia were difficult to obtain as the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), in its Participation in Sport and Physical Activity report of 2012, grouped participation data for “Tai Chi” under the category of “Martial Arts” together with data for other martial arts such as kungfu, karate and taekwondo etc., whereas yoga was given its own distinct category for participation data. My point was that it would be helpful for the Australian tai chi community to have easier access to this information so that we can assess where we are now and consider how to best promote tai chi’s physical and mental health benefits into the future.

Recapping the results of Dr. Lauche and colleagues’ (2016) paper, it was estimated from the 2012 U.S. National Health Interview Survey of about 35,000 participants, that about 7 million people (≈3%) in the U.S., of a population of about 240 million, had practised tai chi at least once in their lifetime, and about 2.6 million (≈1%) had done so in the previous 12 months. The estimate of people who had practiced tai chi in the previous 12 months in 2012, showed only a slight increase (≈100,000 participants) from the estimate of 2002, compared to the larger increase for the 12-month participation rate for yoga which rose from an estimated 10 million in 2002 to 21 million in 2012 (an increase of ≈11 million participants). The authors suggested that a more aggressive marketing approach to publicly promoting yoga in the U.S. was a possible explanation for its success. The data also showed that compared to non-tai chi users, tai chi participants in the U.S. were more likely to be female and older than 30 years of age, and that younger age ranges were generally more represented in yoga research studies, compared with older age ranges in tai chi research. Those interested in other characteristics of tai chi and qigong users are referred to Dr. Lauche and colleagues’ (2016) paper.

I am now pleased to say that…

Read full article

About the Author:

Brian Corless is a (recently retired) Clinical Psychologist and now full-time Tai Chi practitioner on the South Coast of NSW. He trains in Tai Yi Taijiquan with Sifu Wang Yunkuo in Sydney.

 

Ethnomusicology Forum 

Colin P. McGuire 

Published online: 04 May 2018

Abstract

Wong Fei-hung was a Cantonese martial arts master from southern China who became associated with a melody called ‘General’s Ode’. Since the 1950s, over 100 Hong Kong movies and television shows have forged the link by using this melody as Master Wong’s theme. During fieldwork in a Chinese Canadian kung fu club, I observed several consultants claiming this piece as a Cantonese national anthem—a hymn for a nation without a sovereign state. Virtual ethnography conducted online showed that this opinion is held more widely, but that the piece also inspires broader Chinese nationalist sentiment. My analysis of speech-tone relationships to melodic contour in Cantonese and Mandarin versions of the song, however, has revealed a tight integration with the former that the latter lacked. By sharpening Anderson’s concept of unisonance, I explore how this song has become an unofficial transnational anthem for Cantonese people, arguing that Master Wong’s theme auralises an abstract sense of imagined community.

Full article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17411912.2018.1463549

About the Author:

Colin McGuire is an Irish Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Music at University College Cork, Ireland. He holds a PhD in Ethnomusicology from York University and a Graduate Diploma in Asian Studies from the York Centre for Asian Research, both located in Toronto, Canada. His work looks at music and martial arts, with a current focus on Chinese kung fu, examining heroic display and somaesthetic meaning. Through investigations of intertextuality, resistance, transmission, diaspora, transnation, community and identity, McGuire contributes to broader discussions of embodied being-in-the-world.