Vol 15, Issue 1/2004
How Taijiquan and Qigong can contribute to holistic education
An exemplary development.
By Gerhard Milbrat
While on the one hand one finds teachers who, even in bastions of Taijiquan such as
Hamburg, know next to nothing about the Chinese movement arts, there are other places where these arts are already being applied successfully in schools. Gerhard Milbrat, who manages a school for Chinese healing and movement arts in Lüdinghausen, reports on the increasing openness towards holistic movement concepts that is also being promoted by the new general directives for school sport. He and his colleagues collaborate with a
number of schools and teach various aspects within the framework of sports lessons and project weeks: elements of Taijiquan, Gongfu, Qigong and Tuina, but also of applied
Kinesiology and Edu-Kinaesthetics. The approach is pragmatic and aims to give children and teenagers competences that will serve them in everyday life. A clear framework of
rules, as applied in the traditional martial arts, proves helpful in this context.
