It’s 10 a.m. Saturday and although the air is brisk and the sky is overcast, six people are out in Raymond Park moving their arms and legs in slow, fluid motions.
These people, gliding through a series of controlled poses as cars pass by and children play on the nearby playground, are students and instructors from The Human Process, an Evanston-based tai chi and Arica meditation school located at The Evanston Arts Depot, 600 Main Street.
Saturday marked the eighth annual celebration of World Tai Chi and Qigong Day, and as the clock struck 10 a.m. across the world, devotees of the martial arts form went outside to participate in the event.
“It’s fun,” tai chi instructor Peter Norman said. “Tai chi is great for people looking for a healthy form of exercise.”
Norman described tai chi as a “soft martial art,” based on meditation. Tai chi focuses on balance and timing as well as relaxation, he said.
“It’s really a moving meditation,” Norman said. “People can do it to de-stress.”
World Tai Chi and Qigong Day founders Bill Douglas and Angela Wong Douglas started the tradition eight years ago as a “global healing event.”
For the six people in Raymond Park, the day meant an opportunity to gather together and practice their martial art.
Patrice Woolbridge, like Norman, is also an instructor. The two take turns stepping out from the group to lead them in rounds of movements.
Some of the participants, including Woolbridge, also did exercises involving swords.
“The sword is used as an external form of the spirit,” Woolbridge said. Movements with the sword are controlled and meditative.
The Human Process is part of the Cheng Man Ch’ing school of tai chi that practices the Yang family style, Woolbridge said. This style of tai chi is practiced in about 20 cities worldwide, she said.
Part of what makes this school of tai chi unique is that its teaching is based in instructing teachers that can in turn teach other teachers and so on, Woolbridge said.
Although there are no tai chi masters at The Human Process, there are many thoroughly trained instructors, she said.
“We teach what we know,” Woolbridge said.
Highland Park resident and World Tai Chi Day participant Tom Kennedy recently started Tai Chi at The Human Process because a knee injury made more physically intense martial art forms too difficult.
“I’ve done martial arts like Judo before,” Kennedy said. “Tai chi is good because it doesn’t demand a lot of violent movement. I really enjoy it.”
The Human Process, which opened a little more than a year ago in Evanston, teaches primarily adult classes, with about six to 10 students per class, Woolbridge said.
Although geared toward adults, some of the 16 instructors are not adverse to having teens in their classes, she said.
“The teen would really have to be meditative though,” Woolbridge said.
Reach Anna Prior at [email protected].
