1) What are we trying to solve?
A lot of seniors have the following two ongoing challenges: a) high risk of falling b) chronic pains.
I don’t believe falls can be entirely prevented, you can certainly reduce the risk by not doing “stupid things”. Like driving cars, taking classes on how to drive safely is needed and a necessary step. However, car insurance is mandatory because accidents do happen. We want to be prepared to minimize the chance of a fall that is life changing.
2) A bit about myself
I am not a doctor nor acupuncturist nor do I have any certifications as a medical professional. So please listen/read everything with an open mind. Do use your critical mind to evaluate if things make sense to you. If I say 1+1=4, please don’t argue but do ask why and then apply your own judgement. 🙂
I started martial arts when I was very young, probably 5-6. I dabbled in a lot of stuff but LiuHeBaFa (六合八法) is my home/foundation style (an internal martial arts style very similar to Tai-chi (太極拳), Xingyiquan (形意拳) and Baguazhang (八卦掌) in some ways and yet has it own distinct implementation. Over the years of training, I have seen and personally gone through all kinds of injuries and hence have 1st hand experience with different methods of healing. My daughters were competitive gymnasts and therefore I am familiar with the western methods as well. Because of this background, I have accumulated some street smart regarding easy things that you can do and try before you go see the specialists.
3) “I have been active but I still fell more than once in the
last couple of years”
I will share my mom’s story as well as my regrets below:
“My mother exercises 7 days a week in her senior years: walked every day, swam every other day, did line-dances, played badminton 1/2 times a week, and did some taichi at one point. I see that she has kept herself active and thought that was enough already and didn’t add more to her already busy daily schedule. She lived by herself in an apartment and one day I just felt something doesn’t quite feel right, called her but there was no answer. I decided to go check up on her and found that she was in the kitchen lying down in an awkward position – she slipped because the dishwasher overflowed. She was in that awkward position for over 2 hours already. If I didn’t go check on her, it could easily be 24 hours or more. She had a hairline fracture in her back from that fall. From yet another fall, she broke her wrist.”
While the fractured spine and broken wrist are both major injuries especially to a senior, the psychological impact is worse, her confidence level really hit a low point which ultimately affected the quality of life.”
Her active daily routine did help her in her cardio and general well being. However, it didn’t help at all in reducing the impact of the fall. Neither did it help her get back up to get help. I see there is a huge gap in the exercises in terms of meeting what seniors really need. By the time she had her recurring falls, she had early signs of dementia and therefore cannot retain too many new ideas. I cannot reverse what has happened to my mom but I promised myself to try my best to help others potentially on a similar path. The goal is to repeatedly drill the techniques until it becomes their reflexes.
Since my mom’s incident, I started the Martial Gym program for seniors around 2011 and has evolved it for twelve years. It has proven to be valuable (and fun) for a lot of people.
4) The “Martial Gym” Approach
I came up with the term “Martial Gym” by combining two words: “Martial Arts” and “Gymnastics” because it best describes the journey we are embarking on. Most people think of Martial arts with punching and kicking and gymnastics with little boys and girls doing cartwheels and tumbling. I have something different in mind:
- Martial arts is about survival. Most people associate martial arts with punching, kicking, tradition and fancy forms. However, the real reason why humans survive beyond the mighty dinosaurs is our ability to think and adapt to changes. Through the workshop, you will see how we adapt to our changing body and mind. We are taking the practical side of martial arts and forgoing styles and tradition.
- Gymnastics is about the science of movements – Humans do incredible acts like defying gravity with tricks in the air because of a systematic way of breaking down complex skills into simple achievable tasks and then putting them together.
Gymnastics is about the use of science and an improved way of teaching so that most people can achieve incredible skills without insurmountable risks. We adopt the teaching methods without the emphasis on pleasing anyone else.
I teach based on the needs of each category of participants. As seniors, the most common nagging problems we face are “Fall risks” and “Chronic Pains”. I am not going to nag you about what your should have done when you were young. We are going to take charge of our own
destiny by taking action! The articles here are all intended to help you think and act differently.