Michelle’s  Chi for Children

Michelle’s Chi for Children: 
A series of Tai Chi movements for improving mental focus, fine motor skills, reflexes, and hand-eye-cordination, helping children become better at organizing their brains. 

My classes are taught throughout the Santa Cruz, and Pajaro Valley School Districts.

I developed this activity program from two ancient forms of movement for physical fitness, health and well-being:
QiGong and Tibetan Tai Chi (a low impact as well as cardiovascular Martial Arts form)

My three main objectives: 
1. To help parents and teachers create a calming and orderly exercise routine that fosters an       ambience that is conducive to learning.

2. To help children develop healthy lifestyle habits from an early age that they can utilize 
    for the rest of their lives.

3. To build a positive attitude towards exercise -- 
    whether the child has a natural aptitude for it or not --
    by making it fun and engaging the student intellectually at the same time.

In children, these movements increase the brain-body connection for hand and eye co-ordination, and ease the aching joints sometimes called growing pains. 
 
In all of my classes I teach the Tai Chi Criss-cross, aka Super Brain Yoga. 
Pilot studies of the effects on school children include children with disabilities such as ADHD/ADD, developmental and cognitive delays, Down syndrome and specific learning disabilities. 

• Children studied showed significant increase in academic and behavioral performance, greater class participation and improved social skills. 
• In one study, the result of an electroencephalograph showed increased amplitude in the parieto-occipital region of the brain following the Superbrain Criss-cross. 
• This indicates increased brain electrical activity following the exercise. 
• More studies on the effects of the Tai Chi Criss-cross or Superbrain Yoga® are being conducted. 

It's a fast, simple, drug free method of increasing mental energy.  

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White Crane Spreads Its' Wings: uses every muscle in the body, and stimulates brain body connections for better reflexes.

 Movement Forms
Traditional Health Qualities                          
 Meridians- Rivers of Energy flow
 Defining Chi in Tai Chi and Qi Gung
 Qualities and Balance of Yin and Yang 
Brain Challenging All ages

•  Super Brain criss-cross 
•  Lizard Chases his tail
•  Finger positions for Bird of Paradise
•  Bird of Paradise
•  Peacock alights on the Cherry Blossom   Branch
•  Heaven’s Horse

Bayview Elementary School students. Photos by Sandra Cherk

Lower Grades   Gentle Forms

Upper Grades    Basic Movement  

•  Horse Shoe Stance 
•  Yin/Yang Cloud Hands
•  Tiger paws, tiger tail
•  Rock to Eagle spinal curl 
•  Phoenix Rising
•  White Crane Spreads its Wings

The proven brain and body benefits of these forms have enhanced practitioner’s well-being for thousands of years. Over the years, I have seen actual evidence of improvement in my own students with dyslexia, ADHD and balance problems. Miami University of Medicine has recently published these same results in their research journal. 
After doing the arm-cross-over-squatting sequence, EEG  scans of the brain show the right and left hemisphere are synchronized. 
    See the CBS report on this amazing research: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSwhpF9iJSs
    More information on  the brain synchronization: http://www.superbrainyoga.org/