It is well known that practicing Taiji [1] has many health benefits, including lowering of blood pressure, increase in immunity to shingles, relief to osteoarthritis, lowering stress and pain reduction, improvement in the control of Type 2 diabetes, reducing probability of Alzheimer Disease, and general improvement to overall health [2]. Practicing Taiji also can help the elderly with depression [3], help people with Parkinson Disease [4], and provide psychological benefits [5]. These studies show that practicing Taiji can result in health and behavior changes at a macroscopic physical and emotional level of the Taiji practitioners. Until recently, there has not been any study investigating the brain structural (neural) changes underlying the health and behavior changes associated with practicing Taiji. This article reports the results of a recent research study that shows that practicing Taiji results in increased cortical thicknesses of the brain.
Living Through the UC Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement of 1964
As difficult as it may be believed, a lot of freedom of speech activities that we now take for granted were actually not allowed in many college campuses in the U.S. about 50 years ago. Activities, such as advocacy for civil rights causes, recruitment of people to support off-campus activities like voter registration drives or religious missionary work, or solicitation of donations to combat hunger, are taken for granted by today’s college students everywhere in the U.S. However, in the fall of 1964 they were all forbidden activities at the University of California (UC) at Berkeley and many other college campuses in the U.S. At that time students on campus could discuss these activities intellectually, but they were forbidden to advocate actions to support causes no matter how noble those causes were.
That was the reason why students at UC Berkeley in the fall of 1964 started the Free Speech Movement (FSM) and triggered a new generation of student activism across the campuses of America. It is important to note that the initial protest had support from students across the political spectrum, not just the radical left, but also young democrats, young republicans, and religious organizations, as you can see from the dress attires of the protesters in the photo below. It is true that when the FSM took on more civil disobedience actions such as sit-ins, many of these students, but not all, from the more conservative organizations no longer joined in those particular actions although they may still be supportive of the basic goal of the FSM.
Walking Tips and Taiji
A friend of mine recently forwarded an article describing a couple of tips on how to reduce the risks of falling. This triggered me to provide some walking tips from Taiji that can reduce our risk of falling and increase our balance. Taiji is a good health exercise, and it is also a good martial art. For most Taiji moves, one can explain that move from the health perspective or from the martial arts perspective. This article will explain three walking tips from both the health perspective and the martial arts perspective.
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What Can Be Learned from China’s New Air Defense Identification Zone?
On November 20, 2013 China announced an “East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ)” that includes the air space over the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. The impression given by the press and political leaders, especially those of the U.S. and Japan, is that ADIZ is a new concept that China has introduced, that China has no right to establish this ADIZ, that China has done something evil, that there are good reasons for the U.S. and Japan to complain strongly, and that China has unnecessarily introduced instability into that region. However, when we study this issue further, the truth is far from the above impression.
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