Tai Chi - a poor man's art?

[GeneChing]

The Elliptical For The Rich, Tai Chi For The Poor
Published: Thursday, 22 Jul 2010 | 11:51 AM ET
By: Darren Rovell
CNBC Sports Business Reporter

Every year, the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association releases its state of sports participation in America study. The 64-page document is filled with interesting tidbits that will make you smarter at the office water cooler. Here are my top 10 highlights:

Of all the fitness machines, the elliptical motion trainer has the highest percentage of participants whose annual household income exceeds $100,000 a year. Forty percent of those who use the elliptical make over $100,000.

· Tai Chi (18%) and Roller Hockey (25%) are the activities that have the highest amount of participants that make less than $25,000 a year.

· Lacrosse is the team sport played by the rich. Nearly half of all people that play lacrosse (48 percent) make $100,000 or more. The richest individual sport is scuba diving, with 50 percent of its participants making $100,000 or more.

· Of the 3 million cheerleaders in this country, 400,000 are male. Of the 3 million wrestlers in this country, 500,000 are female.

· The most obsolete exercise machine in the country just might be the cross country ski machine. Its use is down 52.7 percent over the last nine years.

· Texas (781,000) and California (771,465) have more than double the participants playing high school sports than the No. 3 state, New York (380,870).

· Basketball related equipment sales were $342 million in 2009, which is its worst year of sales in at least the last nine years.

· Of the indoor sports and games (billiards, bowling and darts), bowling has the highest percentage of wealthy participants. Thirty percent of bowlers in the United States make $100,000 or more.

· Haven’t seen anyone rollerblading in a while? The number of people participating in inline wheel sports is down 62.2 percent in the past nine years.

· Water sports have not fared well over the last nine years. Over this time period, jet skiing (down 18.5 percent), wakeboarding (down 21.5 percent), scuba diving (down 36.7 percent) and water skiing (down 44.5 percent) have seen massive declines.

Well shoot. No wonder I can't make money on this.

[JamesC]

I dunno about where you guys live, but where i'm from it is one of the most expensive.

The going rate around here is 50-75$ a month for classes 4-5 nights a week at any other martial arts school.

For tai chi, you're lookin' at about the same, except for 1 class a week. For each extra class you take the price shoots up.

It also depends on what kind you're doing, I suppose. Not much in the way of actual martial application tai chi here. That is mostly for the places that cater to the "hippy" crowd and also offer stuff like Yoga and Pilates.

There is a Hunyuan Taijiquan school fairly close, but it runs 45$ a month and they have class once a week. Essentially you're paying over 10$ for every hour you spend practicing.

[GeneChing]

That would be "paying over 10$ for every hour you spend" at the school. YOu can practice for free any time, any where.

[JamesC]

Fair enough.

Given the difficulty in learning an internal art, you would think that more time should be spent under scutiny from the instructor.

[Hebrew Hammer]

Uh...eh...yah and stuff.

[dcrjradmonish]

In my area the only 2 arts you can find on any side of town and most health clubs teach are tai chi and tkd. That said they are also the cheapest and often times are included in health club fees or a small price extra. That is martial applications just not the forms. The prices here go from 20-50month both arts. Other arts start at 50month and go up to 200month depending on credibility of schools fighting record and name of instructor. I have trained for minimal time at 90% of schools around here and unless you training to fight competitive the quality of instruction at all schools have been good.

[tiaji1983]

I for one am glad Taijiquan didnt become a "richman's sport". I would rather the poor people that need it for self defense in day to day situations, and for preventive medicine for medical treatments they cant afford, and they have easy access to it.
Then its also possible for the teacher to stick with Daoist principles and not take advantage of thier neighbors. But unfortunately I feel a lot of teachers are taking advantage nowadays. So I would rather be considered a poor man, who lives his life, and knows Taijiquan, than a rich man that is always worried about my health and money.

[Liokault]

walking into my tai chi class tonight, I could smell the poverty!

[randyds5]

Originally Posted by tiaji1983

I for one am glad Taijiquan didnt become a "richman's sport". I would rather the poor people that need it for self defense in day to day situations, and for preventive medicine for medical treatments they cant afford, and they have easy access to it.
Then its also possible for the teacher to stick with Daoist principles and not take advantage of thier neighbors. But unfortunately I feel a lot of teachers are taking advantage nowadays. So I would rather be considered a poor man, who lives his life, and knows Taijiquan, than a rich man that is always worried about my health and money.

I couldnt agree more. In this society where medical treatments are full of side-effects and costly (and often inneffective) treatments are bankrupting people, Tai Chi is the perfect remedy. Not only for the body, but calming of the spirit. I guess we cannot worry about these things. We just gotta live our lives to the best of our ability, and Tai Chi (trained properly) will benefit the rich, the poor, and everything else alike

[tiaji1983]

Thank you for agreeing Randy.

I plan on spreading Taijiquan to as many poor people as I can.