Exercising with low kicking

The beauty of tai chi is that it is gentle exercise and it requires you to only push yourself as far as you are able. The Tai Chi Stance is similar to Wholewoman Posture. Low kicks are gentle and slow without the force of say a kick at a football, and of course you stay in the posture. I can’t see you having any difficulty with them for your prolapse. However, because of the very nature of Tai Chi you would very quickly realise if these movements posed any difficulty to you. So the golden rules are slow, gentle, without force, only push as far as you can go and stay in posture. I don’t know if you have seen Christine’s book or DVDs but her exercises have been devised specifically for women with prolapse, so perhaps over time you may be curious to take a look.

Hi Dear Nature 36,
I have found my Tai Chi DVD discovered at my local library,
very compatible & complimentary to whole woman work.
There are no low kicks in mine - I did one that had high kicks
once & much prefer my present DVD.
There is no request to pull in abs etc, & the effect on joints &
circulation is very good. Even just doing the 3 warmups is good
enough for the whole body - gentle but effective, & doesn't take long.
Hope this helps,
(((hugs)))
& Best Wishes
Aussie Soul Sister

Nature, for quite a long time after I started working on WW posture, I was very hesitant to do any bodywork that wasn't specifically geared towards prolapse management. That was fine because Christine's body of work has so much to offer. The important thing is to really "nail" the posture concepts first, and over time you become very good at recognizing when any given move is taking you outside of that zone. If you have made good headway in restoring lumbar curvature, you will be able to carry this body shape into everything that you do and you will know if it is being compromised. I haven't had much exposure to Tai Chi but I can well believe it can be quite compatible with correct posture. Evaluate it move by move. Good luck with it! - Surviving

I agree with surviving, get the postural concepts down, and then you will absolutely know what new things you can add because your body will definetly tell you at that point!
When I first started I was afraid to lift anything, have sex, or even take my walks that I so loved doing. Doing the DVDs brought on a tremendous amount of confidence in me, because my body did start to take on that lovely whole woman shape. I can now walk quite a distance again, thanks to whole woman. And, I even started riding bike again, in posture of course. I still have set backs, but overall, I have come a long way.
Wishing you the best!!

I have been thinking about tai chi recently as I'm reading "Chi Running" which draws a bit from it.

There's no issue with the kicking, but when I dabbled in tai chi a few years back I found that the pelvis was often described as a bowl holding chi. Tucking the bottom in slightly was encouraged. This is coming up again with Chi running and is somewhat opposite to Whole Woman posture, so as long as you bear that in mind, and put WW posture first before "perfect" tai chi stance, you should be fine.

Hi Kiko

Yes, many of these 'systems' or activities or meditations or whatever are based on ancient practices but they are also modernised by the availability of images of different sorts from the medical literature which pictures the abdomen as a bowl. It could also be said that the WW version of pelvic orientation shows the pelvis open at the front to gather chi into the dan tien, or hara, whatever you want to call it. Chi is not liquid, so does not need a bowl. The pelvis can gather chi from Source or from another person, the same way as a butterfly net or funnel, and stop it from going out the back again. It can also be moved to other parts of the body. I think it is just the way people and teachers choose to interpret the anatomy, and how they interpret the pictures. I think it is all about visualisation, rather than the body itself.

I have just started learning Tantra, and have had to tweek the learnings to accommodate my different visualisation of the body, and how I do the exercises, so I don't aggravate my prolapses. It works just fine for me, though my teacher doesn't quite 'get it' ... yet. One of the most important things I have learned is that intention is what matters. If the action doesn't follow intention exactly, intention is what will gather or move the chi.

I absolutely love the pelvis-open-at-the-front-to-gather-chi/ki/prana visualisation for WW posture. Brilliant. I'm printing your post out and sticking it on my study wall.

My opinion as a lay person would be, that it probably doesn't matter to your prolapse, so if it feels OK go ahead. It's when we are upright and gravity is at work that the posture/organ connection comes into play - surviving

I am also loving the image of the pelvis as a chi collector opening to the front! It puts me in mind of a satellite dish or a baseball glove. Picturing all that chi swirling around in there as I am walking makes it seem even more essential that we keep those belly muscles relaxed so the energy can move! It is so empowering to finally have a felt sense of how my body is made to move.

I like those analogies, Maman - great imagery. - Surviving