TAI CHI KNEE

[Ramon25]

Hey does anyone here know how to remedy this problem. I have funky knees as it is and when i try tai chi they hurt, which sucks becuase dammit i want to do tai chi. Going to a teacher is not an option om learning from a david dorian ross dvd. i have tried chen tai chi and that hurts even more, Bagua circle walking doesnt feel to good. It looks like I cant practice any of the internal arts unless someone can tell me how to remedy this issue.

 

Thanks everyone

[mYTHmAKER]

Hey does anyone here know how to remedy this problem. I have funky knees as it is and when i try tai chi they hurt, which sucks becuase dammit i want to do tai chi. Going to a teacher is not an option om learning from a david dorian ross dvd. i have tried chen tai chi and that hurts even more, Bagua circle walking doesnt feel to good. It looks like I cant practice any of the internal arts unless someone can tell me how to remedy this issue.

 

Thanks everyone

 

 

It really is not a good idea to learn from a dvd unless one has a very good understanding of their body.

You most likely use your knees improperly in general

It is very important to take care of it and they hurt stop practicing until you remedy the situation.

 

There was a thread a while ago re proper knee alignment.

 

If there is no teacher in your area try a physical therapist. - A doctor can write you a prescription.

 

In a nutshell knees must not extend forward over the toes and shift from side to side over your foot.

Any squatting position has the intention of sitting in a chair - knees remain still -vertical to floor - your body moves backward.

Watch the video carefully - the instructor may or may not be doing it right himself.

[11:33]

Hmmm...

 

Just a suggestion,

 

If you want to try something taichi-like, you can always learn some form of qigong that doesn't put stress on the knees.

[sheng zhen]

It looks like I cant practice any of the internal arts unless someone can tell me how to remedy this issue.

Dont give up so fast! And get a teacher... If you dont want a teacher, change your priorties and get a teacher anyway

 

I have osteoarthiritis in my knee. After one month with the arthitic pain in full bloom I started to work out the upper body. That was enough the actually get the healing in the knee speed up very fast. Two months after I was able to run again. And now, 4 months after I am working to get into full lotus again. Almost there now

 

The thing that did it for me was lifting wheigts and working out everything in the body that didnt hurt. And then I begun working out my knee very slowly and carefully as fast as I could. The worst thing you can do is keep your knees still, untrained and cold for too long. The second worst thing you can do is overdoing it

 

And of course I eat MSM, Glucosamine, omega-3, Tart Cherry and Spirulina. A very good joint-pain cocktail.

[Aetherous]

See a PT or athletic trainer to rehab your knees. Getting an internal arts instructor won't necessarily help you with your problem, it'll only help you become good at the art. You have to be able to perform the art first, though! Good luck.

[Ramon25]

Thanks for the responses guys very appreciated

I do alot of joint mobilty and corrective exercise and it does help alot!

Question here. I have alwyas been quite talenteded with a staff but have never been taught anything, it just comes very, very natural to me and I understand its workings. I dont do drugs (anymore) but a couple of years back i did Lsd and when i picked up my staff my understanding of it transformed from being and external art into an internal one> I began to understand the mechanics, the momentum, the feeling of being one with the staff. I have been training with one (self taught) for 10 years but have never put togther a sequence. i have been thinking about putting togther sequnces that or forms based on the 5 elements, one form for each. Of course the intent is to embody the element and get out of it what I would get out of other internal/external martials arts. Maybe when I master each form I can put up a video and you guys can critique it. The art will not be purley martial but also carrying movements that are ART first then martial. For some reason my knees dont hurt as much when i do my own thing. Any thoughts, sugggestions, ideas? thanks alot guys

Edited May 25, 2009 by Ramon25

[Ryan T.]

Hey does anyone here know how to remedy this problem. I have funky knees as it is and when i try tai chi they hurt, which sucks becuase dammit i want to do tai chi. Going to a teacher is not an option om learning from a david dorian ross dvd. i have tried chen tai chi and that hurts even more, Bagua circle walking doesnt feel to good. It looks like I cant practice any of the internal arts unless someone can tell me how to remedy this issue.

 

Thanks everyone

 

Don't do Chen. Chen tends to have lower stances and hence be a bit harder on the knees. Try Yang style Taiji. Most forms of Yang have the lower/harder elements of Chen removed.

 

The main thing to remember is never let the knee go beyond the "bubbling well" point on your foot(the metatarsal area).

 

I would start with basic standing meditation and some good energy movement visualization. A lot of Taiji players get into trouble by not moving the energy into the floor. Especially if you already have knee issues you will get energy stuck in your knees, and just make the problem worse, unless you are very mindful of what you are doing.

 

And check out the book, Framework by Nicholas DiNubile. It can help a ton with alignment/muscular skeletal stuff.

[松永道]

Dont give up so fast! And get a teacher... If you dont want a teacher, change your priorties and get a teacher anyway

 

I have osteoarthiritis in my knee. After one month with the arthitic pain in full bloom I started to work out the upper body. That was enough the actually get the healing in the knee speed up very fast. Two months after I was able to run again. And now, 4 months after I am working to get into full lotus again. Almost there now

 

The thing that did it for me was lifting wheigts and working out everything in the body that didnt hurt. And then I begun working out my knee very slowly and carefully as fast as I could. The worst thing you can do is keep your knees still, untrained and cold for too long. The second worst thing you can do is overdoing it

 

And of course I eat MSM, Glucosamine, omega-3, Tart Cherry and Spirulina. A very good joint-pain cocktail.

 

Personal experience posts like these are one of the reasons I visit Taobums.

 

If you don't mind my asking, how old were you when the arthritis kicked in?

[Ramon25]

Ive tried yang, it hurts. i think im gonna stick with my own forms for now though. See what I can create and eveolve with. So yeah I habe been analyzing the taoist arts and boy were those guys geniuses. Take a look at the heart, now people have a big misconception of the right way to train the heart. A healthy youthful heart needs variability in its rythym. I needs to be able to shift speeds with ease, a healthy heart when observed will show variability. Now an unhealthy heart is more like a clock, very linear in its beat. most people train the heart like a clock with traditional aerobics. The bad thing is, is that you are training the heart in a way its not meant to work and end up causing inflamation in the heart muscle. Now look at chen tai, bagua, hsing-yi. Those were the original arts. They train the heart for variability. Shifting between speeds and intensity thus training the heart for variability, they found a balance between hard and soft in one continuous flow thus improving the way the heart works according to its real nature. They were also more stenuous so they ended up preserving muscle and bone mass, improving metabolism, releasing growth hormone and promoting insulin sensitivity. All this without heavily taxing the system like other forms of stenuous exercise, All this while also connecting the mind and body, moving energy and clearing the channels. Wow!

[Uncle Fester]

.

Edited September 19, 2021 by darebak

[r.w.smith]

Many people get bad knees from Incorrect taichi practice & Subconciously twisting the knees. Theres a chen instructor in my area who has had something like four Knee recontructions.

 

The simplified 24 yang form can also cause many knee problems. One of the best practices to correct or at least sooth this problem (before its too serious) is a narrow horse stance (feet shoulder width) held for a mimimum of 20 minutes per day to re-align your knee etc. and the golden rule,Never let your knees go over the tips of your toes without expert guidance and correct structural allignment first.

 

Hope this helps some.

[clayton]

My first Chinese Martial Art was Yang-style Taijiquan, and I went into it with one knee injured from skiing. After years of knee pain, I began to practice Xingyiquan. That fixed it for me. I am not even sure which knee was originally injured.

 

But I still find careless practice of Yang-style Taijiquan the fastest way to sore knees for me (for the record, Chen-style Taijiquan and Xingyiquan *never* cause me knee stress, and Baguazhang sometimes does, a little). When practicing Yang-style, I have found it particularly important to take as much movement and weight as possible in the kua (hips), the practical consequence of which is that the hips rotate instead of the knees twisting / moving. This is probably difficult to communicate in print, but the result tends to be that my weight stays further back, and my forward knee never goes past the middle of the foot (the toes are already too far, in my experience!).

[mouse]

Ramon25,

 

Knees are only designed to move in 2 directions, front and back with very little give to the sides. They follow the line of the outside blade of the foot.

 

Other points such as structural integrity, sinking, rooting etc can't be learnt from a video. You should really find a teacher who can guide your practice as you are clearly interested enough from the stuff you have done.

 

For a beginner, finding a good teacher is quite daunting and hard to discern who actually has skill and teaching ability.

 

Maybe if you told us where you lived, someone in the Taobums may know a good teacher near your way. Quite a few people on taobums practice some form of Taiji, Bagua and/or Xing yi, Yi quan etc if internal arts are your thing.

 

Good luck and enjoy your practice.

 

mouse

[sheng zhen]

Personal experience posts like these are one of the reasons I visit Taobums.

 

If you don't mind my asking, how old were you when the arthritis kicked in?

Wow, Im so glad me too can contribute to something here!

 

I was 31 when it kicked in. I thought it was the meniscus, but the doctor smiled and said this was an old mans disease I was skateboarding all my youth, and had a bad meniscus all the time. This was not a good combination for my knee. Working out, taoist yoga and meditation is a lot better combination

Edited May 26, 2009 by sheng zhen

[WhiteTiger]

Dont give up so fast! And get a teacher... If you dont want a teacher, change your priorties and get a teacher anyway

 

I have osteoarthiritis in my knee. After one month with the arthitic pain in full bloom I started to work out the upper body. That was enough the actually get the healing in the knee speed up very fast. Two months after I was able to run again. And now, 4 months after I am working to get into full lotus again. Almost there now

 

The thing that did it for me was lifting wheigts and working out everything in the body that didnt hurt. And then I begun working out my knee very slowly and carefully as fast as I could. The worst thing you can do is keep your knees still, untrained and cold for too long. The second worst thing you can do is overdoing it

 

And of course I eat MSM, Glucosamine, omega-3, Tart Cherry and Spirulina. A very good joint-pain cocktail.

 

Ok guys get ready for me to attempt to display my ego.

 

Its funny you mention you work every part that didn't hurt.

 

You see contrary to what the common understanding to the people whom have been practicing Taijiquan and believe they were using there knees wrong and thats the account of them having pain in the knee is slightly a misleading understanding of how the body really works. You see, you get pain in your knee because A. the joint at the bottum or the top (or multiple joints) are not working in proper alignment and/or B. because the bone alignment at the top or bottum (or multiple ones) are not in proper alignment. This causes your weak parts of your body to have pain first. The more you do this after years you will get multiple issues with multiple joints.

 

If you want to fix your knee problem, and its bothering you in everyday walking (or in your every day walking or other physical activities you may first want to go to the doctor for the pain although they will just keep you on drugs "they call it medicine" to cover up the problem) Although physical therapist will directly start to help you in the issue. If the problem doesn't bother you in other physical activity and only in Tai Chi. Go get an instructor it really wouldn't hurt you. (It may cost you more money but its much more worth it) They can address these issues by correcting your alignment problems in the way you use your body through softly training your body. Just as you would with weights... which is how you can fix problems your having.

 

I've personally in my kung fu when i was practicing Cat stance or empty stance, used to do it wrong. I was told a good way to supplement or fix this problem was to do leg presses on the weight machine... (or other exercises that strengthen my quads) the problem immediately got fixed. Although sometimes came back when my quards would get weak again from there I could easily just adjust the way i would do the stance and the pain would go away as long as i as long as i changed to proper stances. The moment I would deviate It would hurt obviously.

 

I'm really not surprised that sheng zhen used weight trainning to fix his issues over time.

When you learn how to do weight trainning with proper alignment its very healthy for you. Can definately rehab and fix improper dominating improper use of your body.

 

Peace, virtue,

WT

[Riyue]

Hey does anyone here know how to remedy this problem. I have funky knees as it is and when i try tai chi they hurt, which sucks becuase dammit i want to do tai chi. Going to a teacher is not an option om learning from a david dorian ross dvd. i have tried chen tai chi and that hurts even more, Bagua circle walking doesnt feel to good. It looks like I cant practice any of the internal arts unless someone can tell me how to remedy this issue.

 

Thanks everyone

most critical postures for knees are single whip and squatting single whip.

you are creating a damaging tension if your feet are twisted a little bit too much...

[rain]

Wow, Im so glad me too can contribute to something here!

 

Personal experience posts like these are one of the reasons I visit Taobums.

 

I also want to join the choir.

you contribute all the time zheng zhen

[sheng zhen]

Thank you

[Martial Development]

Hao style might be more suitable for someone with knee problems.

[Ramon25]

Hao style might be more suitable for someone with knee problems.

 

Thank you!

 

 

It seems like bagua with a shorter step and higher kua may not be to hard on the knee?

[Oolong Rabbit]

It takes time/practice for the muscles, tendons and joints to open up. I study a Yang 108 form and it took me at least a year to learn how to "sit" properly. Until my posture was corrected, my knees would always hurt. Now they don't bother me at all. In all honety, I can't imagine learning any internal art from a dvd.

[Ramon25]

Well yeah what do you mean sit properly? Can you describe it? Also its a dvd or nothing for me and I have been really i mean really wanting to get into an internal daoist for a while now so, I got to try. The martial arts have been a passion from when a kid.

[Martial Development]

To "sit" means to stand in your horse stance as if sitting down in a chair; i.e. with a relaxed upper body, straight-ish spine, and without holding the pelvis at either extreme (forward or backward).

 

One of the many reasons to seek personal instruction, is that what may initially feel to us like an "extreme", can in fact be correct posture, and vice-versa.

Edited May 30, 2009 by Martial Development