Older people with visual impairment can benefit from Tai Chi

Researchers from the Centre for East-meets-West in Rehabilitation Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University designed and conducted a 16 week trial involving forty people aged over 70.  

 

After this trial, the Tai Chi participants showed significant improvements in knee proprioception (awareness of the position of one's limbs) and in their visual and vestibular ratios (ability to balance) compared to a control group.

 

Care home residents in the Tai Chi group were taught a modified 8-form Yang style Tai Chi routine and practiced this in 90 minute sessions, three times a week for 16 weeks. 

Participants in the control group learned to play the Djembe, a percussion instrument.

Dr. Tsang said: "... Our study shows that Tai Chi can be a suitable form of exercise for those with visual impairment and indeed assists with improving their balance control. ..."

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The Drummer

The four great wows in the Mokurai Zen lineage go that way : 

Beings are numberless, I vow to free them

Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them

Dharma gates are boundless,  I vow to enter them...

The Buddha way is unsurpassable, I vow to realize it.

There are an infinite number of ways to realize the Dharma. Sitting in Zazen - Shikantaza is one of them. 

There are other ways.

In The Drummer, Sid, a young and not so bright man seduces the mistress of a Triad Boss, who totally does not appreciate, and sends a bunch of thugs to teach him better manners by chopping his hands off.

Sid flees to a remote part of Taiwan. While hiding in a the mountains of the island, he stumbles upon  a group of monks living in a monastery, far from civilization, where they practice a unique tradition allying Drumming, Kung Fu and Zazen.

This meeting totally changes his destiny.

The Drummer reminded me of the Korean movie "Why did Boddhidharma come from the West", there are lots of similarities, but it is a little more dramatized and romanticized. It is nevertheless a good movie. 

Watch it if you can.