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Paul Wright

Falls are the leading cause of fatal injuries for adults 65 and older.

Emergency rooms treated three million senior citizens for falls in 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.

Of those, more than 800,000 were hospitalized – and more than 34,000 died.

Medical bills resulting from falls, meanwhile, amount to $50 billion each year. Medicaid and Medicare shoulder the burden of those payments to the tune of around $38 billion.

With statistics like those, the importance of maintaining strength and balance in older adults is abundantly clear.

And what do those two centers recommend to seniors hoping to avoid the floor, ground or ambulance? Tai chi.

“It helps to train anyone to develop their body-mind connection, such as a better sense of where their center of gravity is, how their weight is distributed in their legs and how their posture is aligned,” says Paul Wright, professor in the NIU Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education (KNPE) who has studied and taught tai chi for decades.

“So many of us aren’t used to paying attention to things like the way our weight is distributed across our feet,” Wright offers as an example. “Is our weight more forward, where we’re feeling it more on the toes? Or is it rocked backward, and we’re feeling it on our heels? Is my weight shifted more to my right leg or my left?”

Proper posture and body-mind awareness “has you halfway there to preventing falls,” he adds, “but it’s like any skill. It’s something you have to develop through practice.”

Certified teachers are needed, which is why Wright invited staff from Oak Crest DeKalb Area Retirement Center and the B.R. Ryall YMCA of Northwestern DuPage County to NIU for a two-part workshop on tai chi for arthritis and fall prevention.

Jim Starshak, a master trainer, taught seated and standing tai chi movements in the Anderson Hall gymnasium; participants then demonstrated what they had learned by leading the exercises that improve strength, health, quality of life and inner harmony.

NIU alumna Abby Baumbach came from Oak Crest, where she works in Resident Services and helps to organize activities such as movies, crafts and exercise classes.

Baumbach, who earned a graduate certificate in leadership and aging studies in 2022 and a bachelor’s degree in human development and family sciences (with an emphasis in family social services) in 2020, now plans to teach a seated tai chi class for those residents who find it difficult to stand.

Key to her work, she says, is making sure the seniors understand that whatever they can achieve is good enough.

“During the workshops, I was so focused on having every movement perfect because, as I was getting the teacher certification, I thought I needed to,” Baumbach says. “But I realized that I didn’t need to be perfect, and I think this will be really helpful for the older adult population: knowing that maybe if they can’t lift their arms up all the way to do one of our movements, or if they can’t extend their arms across their bodies, they can still do a modified version.”

YMCA yoga instructor Kathy Stiegal came to learn a different approach for older students who’ve left her classes because they can no longer kneel after knee surgeries or because they’ve started to use wheelchairs.

“Something like this might help them because it gives them movement,” says Stiegal, who also hopes to teach tai chi at her church. “It’s a great program for aging adults, and it might be just what they’re looking for. It’s basic, it’s slow and they don’t have to worry about hurting their knees. They can stay within their own comfort range.”

Anderson Hall was indeed a comfortable place during the October workshops.

Recordings of wooden flutes and acoustic guitars furnished a peaceful and relaxing soundtrack fit for a tropical rainforest.

Master Trainer Starshak sat in front of the arc of seated participants, who included KNPE faculty Emerson Sebastião, Dave Benner and Wonock Chung, along with doctoral student Vitor Siqueira.

Quietly narrating his movements, Starshak laid his hands by his side or on his lap, repeatedly raising them, pulling them toward his chest and then pushing them away. He turned his head slowly, about 70% to the side at first, then 80% and finally 100%.

He made a circle shape with his arms. He flexed his shoulders. He crossed his arms, with his hands gripping the sections above the elbow, and rotated side to side. He lifted his legs and extended them forward while reaching back with his hands. He massaged his knees.

“I’m teaching much faster than you should ever plan on teaching,” he told them. “Remember, when you’re dealing with seniors, socialization is important.”

Students then divided into groups, choreographing and leading their own routines while Starshak observed and critiqued.

“Thumbs to the front of the room. Parry. Thumbs to the back. Parry. Shift your weight. Rotate. Slow, deep breaths.” Wright is among those on the gym floor but by no means a beginner.

He first learned the ancient art more than 30 years ago, including private lessons with an elderly Chinese grandmaster, earning his certification in 1994.

During the mid-to late-1990s, Wright then built on his own background in martial arts to work with a physical therapist in the development of tai-chi for-balance programs. He also taught one himself at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago to help patients who had suffered strokes or other impairments.

But people of all ages and abilities can benefit, he says, through tai chi’s holistic focus on relaxation and socialization and its rejection of the “no pain-no gain, mindless repetition.”

“That’s how we model exercise in the West for people who, usually, are younger. But as they get older, those things really don’t work very well for them and, in fact, can sometimes be pretty dangerous and detrimental,” Wright says.

“Your therapist or your personal trainer says, ‘OK, do three sets of 20 of those and two sets of 50 of these.’ And while you’re doing those exercises, your mind can be anywhere. ‘Oh, I didn’t get that load of laundry switched. What are we going to have for dinner tonight? Have those strawberries gone bad yet?’ That sort of mental chatter feeds into our stress,” he adds.

“Tai chi is how it all comes together. When you do body-mind exercises, it actually requires you to put your mental focus into what you’re doing. You’re more mindful and aware in the experience, which tends to be pleasant and engaging because it’s healthy, it’s social and it’s got some challenge to it because you’re learning new material.”

Established in 2011, the program emphasizes the university’s responsibility to serve the public, contribute to the betterment of society and promote the application of knowledge and the interaction of faculty and practicing professionals.

KNPE’s 35-year relationship with Oak Crest, where students in several majors deliver personal fitness training under Benner’s guidance, made immediate sense.

“Dave (Benner) was a perfect person to involve because he’s able to embed tai chi into the KNPE 493 curriculum,” Wright says. “He’s now got certification in this approach to teaching tai chi; he’s well qualified to give his students some exposure and orientation in this and to suggest integrating a couple of these moves into what they do at Oak Crest with the seniors.”

For Sebastião and Siqueira, the tai chi certification augments their research toolbox.

The pair are exploring exercise-oriented interventions for people with Parkinson’s or multiple sclerosis, Wright says, and are likely to include tai chi in their list of possibilities as they conduct tests with Oak Crest residents.

Connecting with a YMCA, meanwhile, adds tai chi as a class option for its physically active senior citizen membership. Promoting such physical activity for seniors is a particular interest for Chung, an assistant professor of sport management who is looking to form partnerships with community agencies such as the YMCA.

Wright hopes the participants from both community organizations “walked away with a greater sense of partnership” with NIU and KNPE specifically.

“I didn’t want to just fund training for the community partners. I wanted us to actually work together. I wanted to break down some of the barriers between the university and the community, the researchers and the practitioners and even professors and grad students,” he says.

“Our approach was, ‘Everybody here has a similar commitment and a similar interest. Let’s work together as a team and do something fun and worthwhile,’” he adds. “I think that’s a big outcome: I hope they’re more likely to approach us, whether it’s about tai chi or something else, and that they see us as folks ‘who roll up their sleeves and work with you, get out there and help and give advice. They respect who we are and what we do out in the community.’”