One of the deepest Taiji educational aspects (but also effective care instrument) is given by the sensitization toward a more complete and complex perception of themselves.

The fact is that a singular quality of taiji lies in putting the person able to work on his physical and emotional balance as a unit, within a holistic dimension of teaching and learning.

In our cognitive development the "sense of agency" represents a kind of experiential mediation towards a first stage of self-awareness.

In this perspective, the action is also seen, in a broader sense, as a process of self-discovery and self-shaping.

The Imagery or visualisation used in Taiji are tools for searching your personal awareness on the movements, postures and gestures. It is a strange mix of sensory informations that is better not to try to control too. Should remain in the flow of experience.

Use the Imagery in taiji means working on the ability to feel, to perceive with the "internal view" the qualities of movement and of postures.

At the start levels of learning it's difficult because the student is focused on visual and spatial component of form. Later with the development of Neigong becomes essential, according to my experience, stimulate the ability to imagine and feel yourself also in terms of proprioceptive and kinesthetic learning.

The repetition can be a double-edged sword!

Strengthens existing connections, what has already been learned, but not opens to new knowledge. Unless you can introduce small elements of novelty and changing with each new iteration.

I think about this reflection more in terms of awareness of movement in the practice of martial art and only in second instance as self-awareness and healing aspect.

Maashes: I m not competent to answer about the mental aspects of the question, but I do think that basic diet and nutrition should be taught. And not just about macro- and micro- nutrients, and how our bodies use them, but where food actually comes from - how animals are farmed, eggs produced, crops grown, etc. Many kids seem to think, for example, that milk comes from supermarkets.

But there is a huge problem to be overcome before diet and nutrition can be taught as far as how the foods we eat affect our bodies. And that is the fact that "healthy eating" guidelines are likely to form the basis of any such tuition, when it is our so-called 'healthy' diet which lies at the root of most, if not all, of the chronic degenerative diseases we suffer from today. If "healthy eating" is taught, that ill-health can only be forced onto future generations.

I would hesitate strongly before presenting Yoga, Tai Chi, and meditation in particular to the board of education (both have been brought in numerous times as trials and even with success, they've still been dismissed). At least in how their presented currently in the mainstream, and the classical practices are a little extreme for most. On top of that the spiritual implication that are currently popular in the mainstream practices are too close to religion for most to be implemented in the public school systems. This is coming from someone who practices a lot of each of these.

I endorse the teachings of these practices with every ounce of my inherent bias, but I would propose something a little more scientifically presented, and I do know that most of the practices have been scientifically verified, or at least supported.

The concern is that one could write a book defining what the term Yoga (योग) is, and their would still demand (for the most part) an delving into the worldviews that have grown with, from, and along-side it's practice. Essentially the language surrounding and used in it would need to be modernized, converted into scientific jargon, and so on. This is something that I have had both the challenge and the fun of doing in my own research.

even translating such words as "yoga", "asana", " guna", "prahna", and so on, into English equivalents that fit easily into conventional grammatical use would both be an enormous hurdle, as well as something that would inherently change many of the teachings. Though I would go an enormous way in the further development of yoga.

These issues apply also to the practice of Tai Chi (of which I'm a long time practitioner and hold a very high level of respect to the practice), and to a lesser extent the introduction of meditation into the education system.

I'm summary, I would highly endorse the implementation of Yoga, Tai Chi, and meditation into the conventional education system, but the approach and presentation would have to be adapted for both the Western context, as well as the current education system.

As for diet and nutrition, I feel that it is a given that it needs to be implemented, and Mr. Groves (above me) has brought some interesting concerns to the table on that.

Yoga was an integral part of ancient Indian education. Although yoga is integrated in primary education and in some cases higher secondary education, its’ fullest potential is yet to be realized.

Adopting yoga in the main stream education at all levels would bring the benefits

of yoga as a philosophy; spiritual path; psychology and therapy.

There are several researches, shows that practice of Yoga and Meditation improves the learning efficiency as well as it is quite useful for the children's physical mental well being. It is up to the society, whether they accept the fact or just keep on ignoring....

http://www.yogaresearch.webs.com

One of the deepest Taiji educational aspects (but also effective care instrument) is given by the sensitization toward a more complete and complex perception of themselves.

The fact is that a singular quality of taiji lies in putting the person able to work on his physical and emotional balance as a unit, within a holistic dimension of teaching and learning.

In our cognitive development the "sense of agency" represents a kind of experiential mediation towards a first stage of self-awareness.

In this perspective, the action is also seen, in a broader sense, as a process of self-discovery and self-shaping.

The Imagery or visualisation used in Taiji are tools for searching your personal awareness on the movements, postures and gestures. It is a strange mix of sensory informations that is better not to try to control too. Should remain in the flow of experience.

Use the Imagery in taiji means working on the ability to feel, to perceive with the "internal view" the qualities of movement and of postures.

At the start levels of learning it's difficult because the student is focused on visual and spatial component of form. Later with the development of Neigong becomes essential, according to my experience, stimulate the ability to imagine and feel yourself also in terms of proprioceptive and kinesthetic learning.

The repetition can be a double-edged sword!

Strengthens existing connections, what has already been learned, but not opens to new knowledge. Unless you can introduce small elements of novelty and changing with each new iteration.

I think about this reflection more in terms of awareness of movement in the practice of martial art and only in second instance as self-awareness and healing aspect.

Medicine is about two things: make the correct diagnosis, and apply the most appropriate type of treatment. In the West, allopathic treatment is favoured, and strongly supported by the pharmaceutical industry. However, so-called complementary (better not called "alternative") treatments must be considered as well. These include fytotherapy, diet, and nutriceuticals, but also chiropraxis, osteopathy, kinesitherapy, and - evidently - spiritual techniques. The latter can be based on "Eastern" methods, or their "Western" translation, such as "Mindfulness", relaxation/meditation techniques, and hypnosis. It is essential that complementary methods of treatment are 1. applied after the diagnosis has been made 2. are used in complement to other techniques.

But, certainly, doctors should be aware of these complementary treatments, though they should not be trained to apply these themselves.

Yes, but with caution on languaging, as others have mentioned. I address some of these issues in a new book, described at www.supernormalbook.com.

Yes, I would agree that healthy activities (such as tai-chi, yoga, meditation, healthy breathing, kinetics, etc.) and healthy diet (five servings of fiber-rich vegetables and fruits) be introduced early into ones' life before the healthy behaviors that are formed mostly from primary to secondary education before adolescents and early adulthood. Current evidence showed that only 10-15% of US populations are eating healthy with enough fiber rich diet with natural essential nutrients. Healthy diet can be introduced in connection to the gene-environment interactions to prevent chronic diseases and cross generational epigentics changes that can be inheritable for generations. Healthy activities can be introduced in connection to building ones resilience and keeping active productive life.

A recent study on taichi in 2013 has revealed that taichi has no Qi. There is no meditation and any Ying & Yang theory. Once you slow down your taichi movements to the speed of old taichi developed before 1956, together deep breathing, oxygenated blood will be pumped to all difficult-to-reach capillary beds in the brain and other internal organs simultaneously. This will allow organ cells to produce new cells with normal DNA's in a longer time frame. I called this self-healing and posted this hypothesis called "Pao's Law of Exercise" in this net. This is all about how you cheat your brain that you are not moving when you are still moving but very slowly. Yoga's stretching exercises work with the same principles if one moves really slowly. So, if you move faster like what people are doing nowadays, healing properties will disappear because your brains will shut down most of your capillary beds in organs and rush most blood to muscles.

It would be difficult for schools to promote this kind of slow moving exercises to kids although it is very good for them. That is why China made taichi's shorter and faster in 1956 with the purpose to promote taichi to the masses. At that time, little did they know that healing properties could nearly vanish.

Pao Yen. Thank you. I will look for your post. You've provided another level of insight into why my old Qi Gong teacher said that Wu Ji (stilling the breath in goat stance) was the most important and beneficial of all Qi Gong and Taiji practices.

I believe in any case that the implementation of different reflexive and experiential ways is useful to develop different quality of learning as a tool for transformation and growth of the person.

It is equally important that holistic practices are proposed according to the formative and educational guidelines and not through addestrative forms or therapeutic approaches.

Because these modalities should be reserved for other areas and needs.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236891190_Taiji_As_Shared_Bodily_Experience

Article Taiji As Shared Bodily Experience

Article Evolutionary Growth and Embodied Learning in Taiji

Yoga and other mindfulness practices need to be introduced to schools to introduce children into an early journey of looking inward instead of always looking outward for external sense gratification, which is a dismal substitute for Happiness. The current so-called education being imparted in primary schools in the name of western education is only serving to make children literate. We have been programmed to compete in the rat race of materialistic earning & consumption while ignoring the basics of Humanity. Children are taught to excel for the sake of purely materialistic goals which breed competition, imbalance and strife. What about the moral and ethical part, without which graduates are in danger of becoming educated beasts? Even the so called elite schools crank out graduates with only one thing on their minds-How to earn a living, earn a better life so as to acquire all pleasures of life. As the parents spend most of their time earning money, they assume that moral ethics are also taught at school along with literacy and scientific skills.

Isn't this plain foolish? When we ourselves dont have the time or patience to teach your children ethics, how can we assume that someone else on a salary will teach them morals at school? Thus the rot evident in most current school graduates.

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself-" Leo Tolstoy

„You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals”-Marie Curie

"Our studies must begin with our selves and not with the heavens"- Ouspensky

"No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path" -Gautama, the Buddha

A simple plan of educating children in the Yoga science basics is attached here.

Please do comment

In the public school I wouldn't like to recommend such "exotic" offer as part of normal lessions. Respect and understanding the basics of cultural manifestations of far distant countries need for serious meeting careful preparation, especially best trained teachers not only in practice but regarding the historical-cultural context. I stress this although it is known that Yoga or Tai Chi became familiar for long time in Western countries. But if there are special trained teachers with experience it would be a matter of an additional course or for a working group at the respective school.

These important study contents should definitely be included.

Contribute to the development of mental health, little by little, will contribute to make our world emotionally more bearable.

The good mental health of the students contributes to the good mental health of the teachers and in this way there can be a better return of the educational work.

Yes,YOGA it should be introduced at Primary level at educational Institutes.