I am getting getting very annoyed at the trending Chair Tai Chi ads I get fed when I am playing my "free" video games on my iPad. I know I am the age group they are trying to reach, and playing off old men who are out of shape and like the idea of being able to sit in a chair and do some semblance of a workout in nine minutes and then have a ripped body. And they always show this totally buff Asian dude who claims he is in his 60s and got this way by sitting in a chair and waving his arms around.
These ads are the Sea Monkey ads of my generation. There isn't any part of me that believes any of the claims or that you could simply click on the button and get an exercise plan to print out and become a whole new person in two weeks. The only thing almost as bad are the ads for the gelatin concoction you can mix together at home and lost 30 pounds in less than 12 days.
Sad thing is that I know these ads are effective because they play on all of the insecurities of people who feel bad about their body and how much they weigh. The reality is that unless you stop enjoying life and become a fanatical freak it is normal to well...spread out when you age. Lots of it has to do with DNA. You have the body you were born with.
It's not that I don't think Tai Chi is a good thing. Years ago I signed up for a Tai Chi class through the local Experimental College. At the time I was taking lots of these night and weekend classes in things like Swing Dance, Astrology and Creative Guided Meditation. Honestly I did it mainly to try and meet women. It never quite worked out.
Experimental College classes at the time were taught by just about anyone who wanted to make a few bucks and had a few skills under their belt. The Tai Chi class I took was taught by this short, heavy-set, 40-something guy from Chicago. He had a potbelly and it didn't give you lots of confidence in what Tai Chi could do for you. Most of the time he let this young, over eager senior student of his help teach the movements. And he was kind of a dick. No matter how you did the movements, he would tell you they were wrong and show you the movement again in exactly the way you were doing it. It was like trying to speak your high school French in France to a French waiter.
I finished one quarter of it and signed up for another quarter but then dropped out. I tried doing it now and then on a local beach. But it eventually went the way of many short term interests I had.
But the point is, Tai Chi was never presented as a way to get buff. At the time it was considered something old Chinese people did to keep their circulation going. And I never saw anyone do it sitting in a chair. So Chair Tai Chi may be a thing and someone, somewhere may get benefit from it by simply squirming around in their chair, but always remember: Sea Monkeys are brine shrimp.
That being said, I couldn't help but ask ChatGPT to help me create a t-shirt design for my own Tai Chi craze:
The irony (and the betrayal of it) was that I didn't ask it to put my face on the man in the recliner. Et Tu ChatGPT?
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