More Inside:

The Scene: Finding Your Way In Jewish Detroit.

Spotlight: Good Buys At The Goodwill Antique Show.

Travel: New Year's Eve In Dead Sea Archaeology.

Food: Some Easy Rules For Quick-Fix Items.

IVIeditation I

An ancient Chinese
regimen balances
body and mind.

RUT HAN BRODSKY
Special to The Jewish News

T

• f ) Z.C1.'2

/

. .7

• •

here are no Tibetan chants emanating
from the Jewish Community Center
classroom. The 14 students quietly and
intensely practice a series of deliberate
moves under the watchful eyes of their instructor.
Posing, waving their arms, flexing their knees,
aligning their hips, and rotating their wrists, they
appear to be mimicking a martial art movement
in slow motion.
This is T'ai Chi, a slow, relaxed physical activi-
ty created in ancient China and now heralded as a
way to lower blood pressure in older adults almost
as much as a moderate aerobic exercise program.
At last March's American Heart Association's epi-
demiology and prevention conference, a highlight-
ed pilot study demonstrated that beneficial effects
from T'ai Chi resulted after only six weeks of
exercise.
"We weren't expecting to see changes in blood
pressure," said Deborah Young, an assistant pro-
fessor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in
Baltimore. Her study was intended to look at
moderate-intensity exercise and compare it to T'ai
Chi, which was expected to make very minimal
changes. Instead, T'ai Chi demonstrated a signifi-
cant change.
Already a popular trend in New York and Cali-
fornia, Detroiters are getting the word about the
healthful benefits of T'ai Chi as an alternative to
fast-paced, bone-jarring aerobic exercises. Eight-
week courses are a regular part of the recreational
programs at both Jewish Community Centers,
area health clubs, and municipal recreational pro-
grams.
Norm Samsky of Southfield, an airline pilot,
learned about T'ai Chi as a way to relieve stress in
a cockpit resource management course.
"I've been enrolled in a T'ai Chi course for
over a year at the JCC and have already lowered
my cholesterol by 10 points," says the 51-year-old
Samsky. "What's interesting is that you can't learn