I think the point that keeps getting missed is that activities (like tai chi) when used in conjunction with medical practice can have better results. I don't have any research or evidence to back up my next example, but I believe that the following conclusions can be made about my hypothetical study outlined hereafter:
If there is a group of say, heart attack victims, and we prescribed them all different methods of "treatment." Group one is
only medication (like vitorin to lower blood cholesterol) and surgery and other medical treatment practices. Group two is
only physical activity like regular excercise, tai chi, stretching, walking, etc. Group three is both of the above. Group four is no treatment at all. If each group has 100 people in it I would imagine the highest success of treatment would go in this order (with the lowest success at the bottom):
No treatment
Exercise only
Medical practices only
Both Exercise and Medical practices
I think most people would agree with limited concrete knowledge while the degree of difference between each group could be debated. The point is that when used in conjunction with modern medicine tai chi, stretching, walking, etc. can be highly (if not infinitely more) beneficial for the reasons that rattler has stated:
no offense but these sound like the benefits of all exercise, not just tai chi.........to say tai chi is better because of these benefits is ignorant cause the same can besaid of all physical exercise, hell i reaped some of those benefits spending 2 8 hour days installing carpet this weekend.
Additionally, I will echo PAK when she says to keep yourselves in check. Frankly I'm getting tired of seeing all the comments about nobody having research or done any fact checking around here. I'm scared to say that it was snowing earlier in case I haven't checked weather dot com without everyone saying I have no idea what I'm talking about. It's obvious that we all can construct arguments and of course we don't always do a perfect job of conveying our message; alas is the problem with internet discussions.
My point is this: there is no reason to attack each others "research" or knowledge base in such a negative manner. I think we all can avoid a lot of perceived aggression by more carefully preparing and reviewing our posts. For example:
All im saying is do more research before you make comments.
I'm pretty sure Adam meant to say "I would like to learn more about the evidence you are talking about because I'm not quite clear how you are basing your comments."
AND
In the nicest possible way, you know absolutely nothing about medicine.
I'm positive what Phission meant to say was "I think there are some key points you are missing about modern medicine that would help me clear up my earlier posts. Let me see if I can explain myself better.
There was a good discussion about a (in my opinion) terrible author and how he would ridicule readers that constructively critiqued his series. He said (not verbatim but close) if readers didn't understand certain parts of his story than they were stupid. It's not that readers are stupid but rather the author did not do a good enough job telling the story. I think that's a very applicable story in this case.
I've never closed a thread about tai chi but I guess there is a first time for everything.
xvart.