The Force Awakens

It has been 4 years since my last post on this blog.

Why did I spend so much time before writing again? And why do I start right now? Why right now this awakening?

The answer is simple. I had promised myself that I would not write on this blog until I could get a scientific recognition of my attempts to unify Tai Chi and work. Well, simply that moment has arrived.

The way has been long and difficult. We first applied for European projects on the theme of Tai Chi as rehabilitation for arthritic patients. The first attempt was not bad, but it was very far from success. The second was much better and we went very close to get the funding, but with hindsight, I think they were right not to accept our projects.

The idea was very good and presented convincingly, but we lacked experience. No one in our consortium had previously worked with Tai Chi and no one had any publications on it. Of course, we had many articles published on the various technologies that we wanted to apply, but nothing related to the specific application and this was noticed. In fact, when we arrived at the part where we explained the analysis that would have been made, between the lines we wrote "when we will have the data we will see what to do with it".

I find that in today's research this approach is profoundly wrong (I obviously understood it too late). Clearly denotes a lack of knowledge of the subject. If I do not have the slightest idea of ​​what I will get in my study it means that I am facing a totally unknown field of which I know nothing, so it is clear funding agencies will have some questions.

The naive could comment "But it's research !!! By definition you face the unknown!". It's true, but it's not exactly like that. There are many different levels and it's a bit like learning how to swim. We start from the shore and gradually move away from it. Normally parents do not throw you in the middle of the sea alone when you do not know how to swim yet :-D

Here, in the same way, one never begins to work in a field of which he knows absolutely nothing.

And so I started working again. Reread literature, scientific and not. What are the principles of Tai Chi? What should we focus on? What do we want to measure?

We have chosen "relaxation and stability".

The work developed was simple: ask the volunteers to contract the muscles of the shoulders and gluteus to simulate a situation of tension and then do some exercises of respiration and relaxation and repeat the measure of stability in a condition of "relaxation". In six months we already had all the data and we wrote a first version of the paper that was called

"Relaxation and stability." Preliminary study for the clinical use of oriental relaxation disciplines. "

Then a long series of revisions began. I'm not going to bother with the details, but convincing reviewers and editors was a complex process, during which we decided to adjust the shot and put the oriental disciplines into the background, presenting a new version with the new title that you can see also in the image:

"Muscular tension significantly affects stability in standing postures"

In a nutshell, the result is simple. The tension reduces stability, so in case of danger it would be better at least not to be tense.

On the other hand we had not considered breathing problems. It seems that deep abdominal breathing, an important requirement for relaxation, is more complex than expected for many volunteers. And this is the next study we are moving towards. I'll keep you up-to-date.

And may the Force be with you.