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"Lawrence Biscontini's 'Yo-Chi©'""
Published in "Can Fit Pro," 2004

The first-ever 2001 IDEA World Report Survey in of fitness trends reported that the number one growing trend of fitness classes in the West is fusion.  Simply defined, a fusion class is a class that combines two or more disciplines usually not practiced simultaneously.  These are then harmoniously blended in an effort to complement, balance, and enhance the other discipline.  Examples of fusion classes abound: fitness boxing in the water, Pilates with stability ball workouts, and golf drills with Core training. To be sure, fusion classes usually result in a combination of one more traditional cardiovascular or fitness discipline (like stability ball training) and a more mind-body discipline (like Pilates).  Perhaps even more unique, however, prove the classes that fuse two or more traditionally separate mind-body disciplines.  Such classes can offer a more detailed experience than either discipline alone: more benefits, a variety of emphasis, and even different breathing techniques all expand the practitioner's world to deepen a sense of self.  Truly, a mind-body fusion class delivers not a work "out," but a work "in."

The media of late has been documenting the benefits of the ubiquitous fitness yoga classes.  Current research claims the increased strength, flexibility, and even cardiovascular benefits resulting from the practice of both asana (physical postures) and pranayama (breathing techniques).  Research also indicates the stress-reducing benefits of yoga practice, including lifestyle improvement changes in individuals with non insulin dependent diabetes mellitus, chronic stress, and cardiac heart disease factors.

T'ai Chi perhaps proves a little less understood.  Older than yoga by a few hundred years, T'ai Chi means "supreme ultimate energy," and the West usually appends "ultimate meditative slow boxing" to its connotation as well.  The focus of the martial art of T'ai Chi is more of self-mastery than of self-defense.  Over the centuries, practices of specific "forms," or body movement patterns, have been passed along in such a way that very little remains changed.  Of these forms that remain today, perhaps the most significant dates to the emperor Yang, and it is his "Yang Short Form" that survives as most popular, among a few others.

A T'ai Chi session both draws on, and contributes to, the strength of the core and the opening of blocked energy ("chi") flow.  The concept of "supple strength" best describes the abilities perfected in T'ai Chi because muscular activity at the joint level, instead of at the muscular strength level, generates movement.  Controlled, balanced movement is the goal.  Wise Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu described the purpose of slow movement best stating "It is the stiff old strong tree that snaps in the strong wind, while the blade of grass bends and lives to see another day."  Unlike in yoga, intense isometric contraction rarely exists, and rarely does the spinal area divide into separate sections for lumbar, thoracic, and cervical vertebral spinal rotation.  The body is trained to move as a unit, with particular emphasis on the slowest speed possible.  Emphasis is placed on continual movement through contraction, paradoxically while the body remains as relaxed as possible.

Many people observing a T'ai Chi session for the first time instantly will notice how the group seems meditatively to dance slowly with the arms.  The Chinese state that breath follows movement, and that "where the mind goes, the chi follows."

T'ai Chi, then, is moving meditation.  Each movement form has its own poetic name that stimulates relaxation while simultaneously demanding concentration.  "Wave hands like clouds," "White crane spreads wings and prepares to fly," "Supporting heaven like a pillar," and "Embracing the white, full moon" are the names of some forms that cannot help but to accentuate the feelings of relaxation that the moving forms themselves encourage.  Concentration is key, and mobility is paramount.

The Chinese discipline differs from other forms of fitness in yet other ways.  In a yoga class, for example, the student learns to concentrate inwardly because each posture will be unique to his or her body.  In T'ai Chi, although there still is no group competition, the emphasis rests on the group.  Attention becomes less introverted and more external, requiring that all participants not only become aware of their own body movements through space, but also of the movements of every other member.   Whereas yoga concentrates on stasis and on isometric contraction, the success of a T'ai Chi session depends on the continual but unhurried flow of energy to the hands from the body and feet.  When practitioners of Feldenkrais, Pilates, and Alexander technique often find themselves on the floor a great deal working on core stabilization, the T'ai Chi practitioner remains moving on foot slowly, but incessantly, as a process of directing energy through the feet, referred to as the "bubbling well of power."

Currently a plethora of T'ai Chi study results has been flooding fitness research with surprising claims.  Among the proven benefits of T'ai Chi are increased relaxation, increased range of motion, perfected posture, balance betterment, better well-being through visualization, and improved postural alignment through proper technique.  One recent study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society discusses reduced diastolic and systolic blood pressure and reduced mood disturbances.  Most surprising, yet another study by Doctors Sun, Xu, and Xia in the International Journal of Sports Medicine, has indicated a boost in the number of T-lymphocytes (T-cells) by practitioners of T'ai Chi.  The number of T-lymphocytes generally correlates in a direct relationship to the level of someone's immunity; the higher the T-cell count, the healthier one's immune system.  This study indicates that T'ai Chi practice contributes to the bolstering of one's immunity via an increased T-cell count. 

T'ai Chi has been proven to assist seniors in several ways.  Most significantly, T'ai Chi helps dispel the most common fear of adults over 60: the fear of falling.  A 1998 study at the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in Taipei published this year in the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) declared that Yang style T'ai Chi practiced by individuals between 58-70 improved not only balance, coordination, and reduced fall propensity, but also surprised the world by documenting a demonstrated "significant increase in measured, aerobic capacity."

The art of "Yo-Chi"® blends harmoniously as if the Indian practice e of yoga and the Chinese practice of T'ai Chi were meant to coexist.  In the following chart, one notices the juxtapositions of yoga and T'ai Chi that balance each other during practice.  Whereas the first terms relate to yoga, the second relate to T'ai Chi:

Unlike other mindful disciplines, then, these two balance each other because they contribute to the full yin and yan(g) opposites that truly make up mind-body disciplines.

An example of a fusion exercise from "Yo-Chi"® is to find the yoga vrykasana posture (tree) on one leg, and hold this mindfully for at least a five breath cycles with ujjayi (nose) breathing.  T'ai Chi will add mobility to this stability exercise, enhancing its functionality, and encourage the practitioner to lower the raised foot towards the floor, creating a "T Step" from T'ai Chi.  From here, one steps out to the side in the frontal plane, placing the heel of that moving leg on the floor, followed by the toes.  This is called a "bow step."  To repeat on the other side, one finds a yoga tree on the other stabilizing leg, and then repeats the above.  During the T'ai Chi movement, breathing should be inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth.

Truly, fitness today is fusion. When that fusion class embodies mind-body disciplines exclusively, it exposes the practitioner to a range of stimuli completely unavailable in strictly traditional formats practiced separately.  The "Yo-Chi"® classes that originated at the Golden Door Spa in Puerto Rico have evolved since December of 1998 to include "Hydro-Yo-Chi" for the aquatic environment, "Yo-Chi™ Program" using a Ball, including the stability and mobility ball, "Yo-Cycle" which not only emphasizes yogic stretching and postures on the floor after the cycling segment, but also incorporates asana and T'ai Chi in the cycle section itself, and "Yo-Chi Core," in which all practices (including a fitness version of the Sun Salutation from yoga) occur on the Reebok Core Board.  Truly, in our stressful times, being able to reap the benefits of more than one mind-body form can help de-stress the soul.

About the author: Lawrence Biscontini , M.A, N.C., was the ACE 2002 Group Fitness Instructor of the Year, and was also named "fitness guru expert" by cast members of ABC's "General Hospital" in ABC's Soaps in Depth.  Recently seen teaching mind-body fitness to Regis and Kelly on "LIVE! with Regis and Kelly," Lawrence serves as Group Exercise Manager, Personal Trainer, and Nutritional Counselor for the Golden Door Spa in Puerto Rico, and also works as AFAA International Certification Specialist, International Resist-a-Ball Master Trainer, Reebok Master Trainer, and creator of Yo-Ch® for land, aqua, and stability ball programs.  Lawrence writes for such international fitness publications as AKWA Newsletter Magazine, AsiaFit, SELF magazine, and AFAA's Theory and Practice industry standard textbook, and forms part of the IDEA Group Fitness Committee and ACE Advisory Board.  Lawrence appears in over twenty fitness videos.  For more information on "Yo-Chi" formats on video as an instructor series, please see http://www.findlawrence.com/ or email biscontini@aol.com.