NZ Church Tells Elderly Not To Practice Tai Chi

A church in New Zealand has asked a group of elderly women not to practice Tai Chi on its premises. It reasoned out saying that the martial art collided with the spiritual well-being of devotees.

The order came even as the old women and sufferers of arthritis had been practicing the martial art in the Central Southland Presbyterian Parish hall for five years without any problems. Even though the movements of Tai Chi are light and soothing, it is deemed to not fit with the church values, according to the parish council.

Nevertheless, the council advised the women to rename Tai Chi. But the idea did not go down well with their teacher who refused to do so. This made them change their venue to be able to continue the classes since a parish council clerk John Willis had told them all to leave the church. "The first commandment is that we must honour God and have no other God before us, and having come from Taoism tai chi is promoting another God," he had said.

However, Willis affirmed that he had not meant to hurt the sentiments of these women. This was in the aftermath of the group teacher’s statement that the classes had absolutely no religious underlining. "The classes I teach are for older ladies and arthritis sufferers and have absolutely no religious significance," she stated. She also said that Tai Chi was nothing but a way of exercising, even though it was invented by Taoist monks.

The teacher was inconvenienced as she had booked the hall for the whole year and was now made to cancel it for the remainder of the year. Accusing Willis of rudeness, the teacher who begged anonymity wondered why a sudden decision was taken without holding confabulations with her over this issue. "I've been going to church since I was 13 but I won't be going back — that's how much this has affected me,” she remarked.

Meanwhile Willis said that he had issued an apology to the group leader in writing for the way he had confronted the matter.

The writer can be contacted at ritambanati@yahoo.com