Rooted Alchemy family, we just surpassed 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. Wow. Back in August, who would have thought we would build a Tai Chi community of over 100,000 people practicing together from all over the world. This journey has been incredibly humbling, and we’re deeply grateful to every single one of you who has been here, practicing, watching, and growing with us. We’re excited for what the future holds and grateful for your patience as we continue building intentionally behind the scenes. Just know that we’re still early, and there is so much more to come. And a huge thank you to Sonny for practicing, teaching, and learning with such depth and integrity that it naturally spread far and wide. Stay the course.

Hello February! February carries a quieter, reflective energy — a beautiful time to nurture consistency and reconnect with practice. 🗓 Live Schedule : 🌿 Every Tuesday & Thursday • Weekly Qi (Qigong) — 8:00 AM • Qi & Flow (Tai Chi) — 8:30 AM 🌿 Every Sunday (except 2/15) • Weekly Qi (Qigong) — 9:00 AM • Qi & Flow (Tai Chi) — 9:30 AM ⚠️ February 22nd will be canceled as we honor Chinese New Year weekend ⚠️ ✔️ All times are Pacific Time (PST) ✔️ All sessions are recorded and available in the community classroom ✔️ Live links are in the Calendar tab (and posted a day before)

Sonny really enjoyed your your tia chi walking you put out on u tube today enjoyed the explanations how things feel 👍🏼👏👏

Your dedication to the arts has shaped an incredible, supportive, and ever-growing community. We are deeply grateful for your commitment to martial arts, Qigong, and Tai Chi, and for the care you put into sharing these practices with people all around the world. Your guidance, discipline, and presence continue to inspire us in our practice and in daily life. Happy birthday, @Kirby Mannon Community, drop a comment and show him some well-deserved birthday love.👇🏾☯️

Are Tai Chi and Qi Gong aerobic? Below is a short article discussing several studies done on the effect of tai chi on energy expenditure and blood pressure. The article was written by a “Tai Chi uncle” of mine Dr. Harvey Kurland who is a Kinesiology professor at UC Riverside. Tai Chi uncle means he trained under the same teacher that my teacher did, in fact he is very good friends with my teacher and trained with Tchoung Ta Tchen for many years. He has done several studies on tai ji over the years and since his methods are very similar to our own we can learn a lot from the findings. The interesting take away from this for me is the energy expenditure related to the different forms and experiences and the range of METS found. This does show that the practice can meet you where you are at, almost self adjusting as you get better and learn more. Do you need to know about all these studies to get the benefits out of tai chi? Absolutely not, but at a time when there is more data easily available, studies such as this as can help us confirm our instincts and give us more confidence and energy to relax into the learning and training process. "T'ai Chi Ch'uan Lowers Blood Pressure" ©Harvey Kurland MSc, CSCS, MFS, 2013 Many students comment how the t'ai-chi they practice in our classes has helped them to keep their blood pressure under control. But, Dr. D. Young from Johns Hopkins University was surprised to find that t'ai-chi significantly reduced blood pressure. In a 12 week study, she found systolic blood pressure fell 8.4 mm Hg in the aerobic exercise group and 7mm Hg in the t'ai-chi group. The benefits were seen after only 6 week (AHA press release, Washington Post, 4/14/98, p. Z28). I don't find these results surprising, based on what students have said and the research we reviewed in past issues. Several studies showed that t'ai-chi ch'uan is an aerobic exercise and has reduced blood pressure. For example Dr. K. Channer found that t'ai-chi reduced blood pressure in cardiac patients (Postgrad Med J 1996 Ju;(848):349-351) and Kurland (UW 1975) found it lowered blood pressure acutely after one session in normal, non-hypertensive, students.