A Significant Global Public Health and Healing Event

A Significant Global Public Health and Healing Event. In recent months, two of the world's most widely read publications, Parade Magazine and USA Weekend, have made a series of media references to a truly unusual upcoming event.

An unprecedented global health and healing event is about to spread across our planet, educating on natural health solutions and providing a vision of a global coming together for personal and global healing, as well as an urge for people to open their hearts and minds to wisdom from all corners of humanity for the betterment of all.

At 10 a.m. on Saturday, April 29th, 2006 (celebrated every year on the last Saturday of April), a large group of people who have experienced the health and healing benefits of Tai Chi and Qigong (Chi Kung) will hold exhibitions and teach-ins on these ancient health tools in New Zealand's earliest time zones. Tens of thousands will participate in hundreds of events across sixty nations as 10 a.m. rolls across the globe time zone by time zone.

A recent Harvard, Yale, and MIT study discovered that "meditation increases brain size," particularly in the creative centers of the mind. As the moving meditations of tai chi and qigong spread throughout cities worldwide in public places, they expose tens of thousands to the gentle flowing motions of moving meditation, and this moment of mind expansion is carried into millions of homes with the help of global media. What impact does one day of blanketing the world in images of unity, healing, and open-heartedness have on the planet, on humanity? Perhaps it increases global brain size!

And, while research into this has yet to be conducted, it is possible that it enlarges the size of the planet's heart. World Tai Chi & Qigong Day has received moving testimonials from people as diverse as an American Vietnam War Veteran, a young woman recovering from burns caused by a bombing run in the most recent war, and a housewife in Belgium... all explaining what it means to them to be able to participate each year in a global wave of healing intent.

Paul Claroni, a Vietnam veteran from the United States

"Dear Mr Bill, I appreciate your interest in me and your assistance. I had a great time that day with all the taichi people, my friends, and Elaine. I'm not feeling well right now, but I'm hoping to feel better soon. I enjoy Tai chi and find it a great way to relax. Keep in touch with me, and I will do the same. Best regards." Hannan Shihab (Iraq)

"I'm also sending you a photo of myself taken on WTCQD on April 30, 2005. It's a picture of a happy woman who, eight years ago, couldn't stand for more than ten minutes on two feet because her entire body hurt! I now work as a health counselor for both the body and the soul! With all my heart!" Hilda Cardinaels from Belgium

The event is both moving and emotional, but it also provides very practical opportunities for global health and healing. A local television news station, for example, was interviewing a World Tai Chi & Qigong Day (WTCQD) event organizer the morning before the event about seven years ago. A woman was watching the interview and learning about medical research on the potential benefits of tai chi and qigong for chronic pain and limited mobility. The woman suggested to her daughter, who was recovering from a car accident and was experiencing chronic pain and limited mobility, that she attend this "World Tai Chi Day" event and learn about tai chi.

She and her daughter did attend, and from there, not only did they learn tai chi and qigong by attending local classes, but Linda Bowers went on to become a tai chi teacher. Linda now teaches tai chi in a variety of settings, including one for the Kansas State Women's Prison, where she has taught fifty women the tai chi long form, and five of these women have received teaching certificates, which Linda presented to Kansas Governor Kris Kobach last year. These women's lives have been forever altered for the better. I recall teaching tai chi and qigong for the court drug rehabilitation program in Kansas City, and addicts would thank me after classes for giving them a chance to feel well-being rather than gnawing need. Their lives were forever altered because they now possessed life tools that no one had ever told them existed.

Multiply Linda's story by the tens of thousands who take part in sixty countries on the last Saturday of April each year, and you have a world-changing event in every sense.

Who is eligible to participate in World Tai Chi & Qigong Day? Everyone on the planet. When you go to worldtaichiday.org and click on "Everyone's Resources," you'll see a "World TC & QG Day Events Locator," which will take you to your country and state and direct you to WTCQD events in your area. For those already practicing tai chi or qigong, worldtaichiday.org has a "Schools Resources" menu with many Event Organizing resources to use to create a successful event, as well as a free listing for your classes / event.

Where do events take place? In general, and in hundreds of cities across sixty nations and six continents. There is almost certainly an event near where you live. To find one near you, go to worldtaichiday.org.

Most events include free teach-ins, so you'll be able to learn a little tai chi or qigong while also following along with the mass exhibition that will be held to coincide with the hundreds of other events that will be held around the world before and after yours.

World Tai Chi & Qigong Day is a one-of-a-kind blend of fun, serious health education, and life-changing movement for a global audience hungry for simple natural solutions to our world's growing complexity. Emerging medical research suggests that tai chi and qigong could significantly improve the lives of millions of people suffering from common chronic health issues if they only knew about them. Given some of the astounding findings, such as tai chi's ability to boost immune system function (UCLA), or dramatically reduce Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder symptoms in high school students (University of Miami School of Medicine), lower high blood pressure, heal heart disease (BBC), build bone mass, improve breathing, and so on, one would think that billions of dollars would be poured into developing and spreading these tools further and faster to tai chi practitioners.

However, this is not the case. According to preliminary tai chi & qigong research, our health establishment and media appear incapable of exploring and promoting non-surgery, non-drug solutions to our global health challenges in a way that would be appropriate for such highly effective therapy. As a result, World Tai Chi & Qigong Day is also intended to provide popular culture media with a "opportunity" to do a great service to the millions of people worldwide who are unaware of natural health therapies that could greatly improve their lives. World Tai Chi & Qigong Day hopes to collaborate with media, government, business, and other organizations around the world to improve personal and global health through information.

Over sixteen US governors, senates, and mayors from around the world have officially declared World Tai Chi & Qigong Day for their respective states, cities, or countries. The World Health Organization has recognized World Tai Chi & Qigong Day's efforts. There is, however, much more to be done. The work of World Tai Chi & Qigong Day will continue until everyone is aware of the benefits to their lives that tai chi & qigong may offer, and simple natural solutions are given the attention they deserve in our media.

Actually, even if all of that happens, it will continue because it is simply "FUN" to play tai chi and qigong with the rest of the world each year, and it simply "FEELS GOOD." Join us for World Tai Chi & Qigong Day 2006 on Saturday, April 29th, at 10 a.m. local time around the world. Change the world while having fun!