Tai Chi, Dao Yin and Healing Qi Gong (Chi Kung): Golden Lion Academy Keeps You Healthy For Life

Established in 1971, Golden Lion Tai Chi offers a gentle mind-body therapeutic exercise programme that heals the body, prevents illness and keeps you healthy for life. It soothes the nerves and calms the mind as it induces good physical and emotional conditioning. It is meditation in motion.

With our long experience and extensive knowledge, safety and quality are assured and you’ll learn to a higher standard with the unique methods we have refined over 50 years. You too can benefit.

Our classes are held at Berwick and Rowville.
About our classes: Click Here

Taught in fully equipped professional training centres, our tai chi and Healing Qi Gong curriculum and syllabus, designed specifically for teenagers, adults and seniors, allow you to progress from beginner to advanced level in a supportive environment. You’ll train in small groups which allow a nurturing, personal approach to teaching and learning.

Come along and be an important part of our club. You will enjoy your time training with us and you will not get bored from class to class.

Creating perfect balance and harmony of mind and body, various types of tai chi classes are offered at Golden Lion; these consist of yang style bare hands tai chi forms, breathing and meditation techniques, various strength, flexibility, balance and coordination exercises, weaponry such as the sword and fan, push hands, self defence applications and pressure points for both healing and self defence. You may even want to compete in regular tai chi tournaments which are held internationally and locally, or become a certified tai chi teacher or instructor and be graded.All these skills can be learnt by anyone, from 13 year old teenagers to 80 year old adults. Our gentle low impact programmes avoid harmful impact on your joints and allows you to continue exercising as you age. This means you’ll continue to reap the mental and physical health benefits that our programmes give you as you strengthen your immune system and build internal strength. You’ll learn from our highly qualified professional masters and instructors who have extensive experience in their field, they are assisted by specially trained instructors.

Tai Chi is just as good for you as vigorous exercises

The Chinese have known for centuries that Tai Chi’s slow and graceful movements are very beneficial for both body and mind. But could doing something so gentle really be as effective as a class of more vigorous exercises?

Tai chi may look slow and graceful, but it is not as gentle as it seems.

In the recent BBC series – Trust Me, I’m a Doctor by Dr Michael Mosley, Series 8, Episode 6 investigated whether tai chi could offer the same benefits as more vigorous exercise.

To find out, the Trust Me I’m a Doctor team worked with exercise scientists from the University of Birmingham to pit Tai Chi against Zumba.

Below is the result, extracted directly from the BBC’s own website:

A small group of volunteers, aged between 65 and 75, none of whom did regular exercise, were assigned to either 12 weeks of regular sessions of Zumba Gold – a class specially tailored for people in later life – with the rest doing regular tai chi.

The answer may be deceptively simple.

Scientists also measured the volunteers’ blood for levels of antioxidants and other raised levels of chemical markers of stress and inflammation – which may sound bad, but they’re actually a healthy response to exercise and lie behind many of its benefits.

As might be expected, the Zumba Gold group were all fitter after the 12 weeks. Their blood vessels were more elastic and their blood pressure had dropped, while their blood results showed improvements too.

More surprisingly, the results from the tai chi group showed similar benefits, with improvements in blood biomarkers results, blood pressure and vessel flexibility.

Dr Jet Veldhuijzen van Zanten, a senior lecturer in biological psychology and part of the research team, said: “We have found that doing a session of tai chi leads to similar increases in heart rate as moderate intensity exercise.

“So even though it might not feel as difficult as when you are doing faster movements, your heart is working hard.

“This will have benefits to the health of your blood vessels and make them more elastic.”

The tai chi segment of the show can be watched by clicking on this link.