A better balancing act with tai chi
Claire Cohn figured it was just a matter of time before another bad fall. She had already lost her balance once while riding the bus, leading to a serious knee injury. Surgery relieved the pain but left her knee joint feeling less stable. In her early 70s, Cohn felt her sense of stability further tested by arthritis in both knees.
There was no avoiding the steep stairs to her Santa Monica apartment, or the day’s chores, or the climbing onto footstools to reach high cabinets or change lightbulbs.
“I live alone, and I need to do for myself,” she said. “I knew how bad a fall could be, and I also knew I wasn’t getting any younger. So I began to worry about my balance.”
As many as 1 in 3 Americans older than 65 experience a bad fall each year. Injuries from such falls, especially injuries to the hip, can cause permanent disability, landing otherwise capable adults in nursing homes. And seniors are well aware of what’s at stake: Studies show that 30% to 40% report a nagging anxiety or fear of falling that keeps them from doing things they might otherwise do, from playing tennis to walking to the coffee shop.
Cohn wanted to fight her anxiety with activity, something challenging, something interesting. “I really didn’t want to go to a gym or to aerobics. That’s just not for me at all. And I wanted something social.” When she saw that Oasis, a national senior center, was offering classes in the Chinese art of tai chi chuan at the Westside Pavilion in Los Angeles, she couldn’t resist. The blend of Eastern culture and communal exercise seemed a good fit.
A martial art based on positions of attack and self-defense, tai chi has attracted devotees around the world with the slow, deliberate gentleness of its movements. In the last few years, researchers here and abroad have found evidence that the exercises improve balance among seniors.
In one study, seniors taking tai chi classes twice a week reported an easier time performing such activities as bending, lifting and hiking. In another trial, a 15-week course reduced the risk of multiple falls in seniors by almost half.
“It helps you move as a unit, as a whole, shift from right to left and develop strength in the lower extremities,” said Dr. Fuzhong Li, a researcher and tai chi practitioner at the Oregon Research Institute in Eugene, Ore., who has conducted several studies. “In many ways, tai chi is the art of balance.”
Other exercises provide similar benefits. Stretches and flexes of the knees, hips and ankles recommended by the National Institute on Aging to improve balance are used in programs across the country. Dance, yoga and weightlifting classes can improve leg strength and balance, doctors say, as can almost any regular exercise.
YMCAs and senior centers also offer balance-improvement classes, which teach people how vision, gait and body mechanics can affect their risk of falling. Some universities, including Cal State Fullerton, certify balance and mobility specialists to run classes; one program, called Fallproof, is offered at more than a dozen community centers, including the Orange and Westminster senior centers.
Tai chi has become popular among older Americans, in part because it is organized around a set of principles: It’s a philosophy of movement as well as a set of exercises.
Cohn initially signed up for an hourlong weekly class at Oasis. The classes take students through several positions, or forms. The Gorgeous Standing Rooster is a pose on one foot, with one hand lifted up and the other pointed down. In White Crane Parts Wings, one opens the arms slowly, like new wings, while balancing on one leg. And the Hold Bright Moon pose suggests a person holding a heavy bowl.
In a commonly taught style of tai chi, instructors emphasize continuous movement, shifting from one pose to the next in a kind of slow-motion mime. During the movement, the torso remains relaxed, slightly rounded; knees are bent; shoulders drop; chest and waist relax.
One’s center of gravity lowers a few inches during the movement, explains Cohn’s instructor, Daniel Wang-yu, who has been teaching the art for more than 30 years. “This is not only giving you balance and harmony,” he said, “it is also building strength.”
Cohn has practiced tai chi for two years -- and not fallen once. She has gained the physical confidence to do almost anything, except perhaps to join a jumping contest at the urging of her two grandchildren. She’s also taken a class in qigong, a separate Chinese physical discipline. She practices tai chi in the morning with several class members in local parks.
It’s impossible to say whether her exercise regimen has spared her another fall. But she delights in her confidence to do things she probably would have avoided before, including a weightlifting program she recently began or helping her son in San Francisco pack and move boxes recently.
“I just feel nothing can knock me off my pins,” she said. “And you know, I’m not even very good at tai chi yet.”