Monday, July 27, 2009
Swaying Bamboo creates flute like sounds that drift in the air. Beneath the canopy of the heaven-reaching plants, people are performing the ancient exercise of Tai Chi.
This scene is not being played out in a park in China, but in Miami-Dade Parks’ Fruit and Spice Park in Homestead. Every Saturday a group meets in the park’s Bamboo Garden to rejuvenate their bodies, relax their minds and recharge their spirits.
People performing Tai Chi in parks is an everyday occurrence in China, but the scene is becoming common place in the West as more are people are embracing the practice that promotes mental quietude, increases muscular strength, improves flexibility and body structure and manages energy flow.
Outdoor practice is essential to the art as it enables participants to intentionally exchange chi (energy) with their environment. This exchange of energy is vital to health.
According to Chinese medicine, there is a life force that animates all living beings __ humans, animals, plants, minerals, etc… We are born with this force and store it in our bodies. We also draw it from food, herbs, and the air. If we have a healthy supply of chi circulating unimpeded throughout our bodies, our health is enhanced.
Interacting with nature gives Holly Gervais a greater sense of well being. She’s been attending the Fruit and Spice Park Tai Chi class for the past 18 months and doesn’t view it as just physical exercise but also mental and spiritual fitness.
“It’s a mind, body, spirit connection and that’s important to me,” Gervais said. “It’s like being connected with your essence.”
Known as meditation in motion, Tai Chi is an enjoyable way to reduce stress and lift your spirit. Requiring mental concentration and deep breathing, the exercise quiets the mind and generates oxygen throughout the body, inducing relaxation, increasing energy flow and clearing stress.
Parks’ scenery makes them the ideal place to practice meditative exercises. Radiant greenery, colorful floral and open spaces invite visitors to give up a noisy cluttered mind for serene beauty. Parks’ sound track — rustling leaves, running streams, cooing birds and other wildlife calls — is often captured on relaxation cds.
The Fruit and Spice Park Tai Chi class performs the graceful, circular movements among clusters of naturally polished Bamboo. When the wind blows, the plants bend and crackle making soothing sounds.
Jose Imbert, 38, joined the Tai Chi class in April 2009. He practices the exercise at home as well but prefers the park setting.
“I like the fact that you’re outdoors, one with nature,” Imbert said. “Indoors is an artificial environment. It’s all brick, unless you have a plant in your room.”
Editor’s note: The Fruit and Spice Park Tai Chi class is held Saturdays from 11 a.m.-12 p.m. at 24801 SW 187 Avenue, Homestead, FL 33031. For more information on Tai Chi, visit www.abideinchi.com