National Expert Meeting on Qi Gong and Tai Chi Consensus Initiative

Given the well known benefits of Qi Gong and Tai Chi and due to the great need in America for wellness, disease prevention and vitality enhancement, a collaboration of key institutions has convened to help resolve the "Health Care Crisis".

• The Archstone Foundation
• University of Illinois, Office of the National Blueprint for Physical Activity
• The National Council on Aging (NCOA)
• The Institute of Integral Qigong and Tai Chi (IIQTC)

In 2003 the National Council on Aging funded The Healer Within Foundation, the non-profit education and research arm of the Institute of Integral Qigong and Tai Chi, to implement a pilot study of its Tai Chi Easy program™. Tai Chi Easy™ combines Qi Gong and Tai Chi in a program that is easy and fun.

Nearly 400 participants completed pre and post assessments and the findings were very positive (read report) through the statistical analysis provided by the University of Illinois. The pilot findings were reported by James Firman, Director of the National Council on Aging and Roger Jahnke, Director of the Institute of Integral Qigong and Tai Chi, in the spring of 2004, at the joint conference of the NCOA and American Society on Aging (NCOA/ASA) in San Francisco, CA.

Dr. Wojtek Chodzko-Zajko of the office of the National Blueprint for Physical Activity was then able to engage the Archstone Foundation which contributed a $250,000 grant to convene the National Expert Meeting on Qi Gong and Tai Chi at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in November 2005. The Consensus Document that emerged from these proceedings and a set of recommendations were released at the 2006 combined conference of the NCOA/ASA in Anaheim, CA. An article in The Journal on Active Aging, Volume 5, Issue 5 (September/October 2006) entitled Qi Gong and Tai Chi: promoting practices that promote healthy aging provides an overview of the recommendations and outcomes of the National Expert Meeting.

This historic expert meeting and the events that follow it have the potential to impact significantly the challenges of health care costs, chronic disease and the problems of medical accidents and negative drug interactions by fostering a major trend towards greater physical activity and productivity of all ages through the ancient wellness practices of Qi Gong and Tai Chi.