Chi Walking will teach you to walk in balance and with grace and symmetry. You will feel the power and strength in your body, because when you move in balance, tension is minimized and the flow of your energy (chi) is maximized. Eventually, moving with a sense of balance and grace will become more than a way of walking—it will become a way of life. 

And a very healthy way of life, indeed…The positive effect walking can have in your life is truly amazing! It can literally mean the difference between life and death. It has been shown time and time again that walkers have fewer incidences of cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and other killer diseases. Walkers live longer and have a greater optimism about life than those who are sedentary. *

There are, however, very few places to learn how to walk correctly. Most people seem to think that walking is like breathing, that we all just naturally walk correctly. Well, first of all, most adults don’t breathe correctly (but you’ll learn about correct breathing in the workshop). Second, most people walk in a way that keeps them stuck in poor movement habits that restrict their flow of energy and can even degrade their fitness level because of some rather poor habits. We slouch in our chairs, hunch over our desks, cross our legs, stand with our knees locked and our hips thrust forward. Any one of these will cause bones and joints to move in ways that they weren’t designed to move. And through stress and strain, our bodies have become misaligned, imbalanced, and stiff. 

* “Research shows that adults who are physically active in their 50s and early 60s are about 35 percent less likely to die in the next eight years than those who are sedentary. For those who have a high heart risk because of diabetes, high blood pressure, or smoking, the reduction is 45 percent.” (November 2004 issue of the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. A study done by researchers at the University of Michigan Medical School and the VA Ann Arbor Health Care System.)