Tai Chi for Photographers?

I have been practising Tai Chi (or Tai Ji) for over 4 years now, and I simply love it. It’s part of my life. I walk up the stairs, open doors, turn and step to the side while squeezing through crowds and I use Tai Chi principles all the time.
Tai Chi can help you become a better photographer via the following benefits:
- Improved posture (you don’t get tired quiclky carrying equipement).
- Greater relaxation of muscles (easier to take photos from uncomfortable positions).
- Appreciation of your body.
- Improved health and well being.
- Greater control of your breath and muscle tension (hand held photos with long exposure time)
- Coolness.
There are 5 main families, with variations between teachers, so there’s a lot to choose from. But they have one common denominator: the principles they follow. Make sure that you find a professional teacher (not someone who does it only as a hobby) and you’ll see benefits after a few weeks.
There are a lot of web resources, but I can recommend you http://www.taijipedia.net/ as it has a lot of films explaining how to do techniques (come on, you can’t learn that from a book). There are things for both advanced practitioners (like me) and for complete beginners. Give it a go and let me know what you think. It’s completely free, and the guys are professionals with almost 20 years of experience.
Enjoy
Kamil
Weight vests for a photographer?

Do you suffer from back or shoulder pains from carrying your equipment? This seems to be the ultimate unswer to posture and fitness issues. I have come accross weight vest a short time ago and immediately I knew that this is what I want. I found quite a few interesting artilces, e.g.:
www.squidoo.com/Fitness_shortcuts
http://hubpages.com/hub/weight-vest
Please, let me know what you think about it. I think it’s a great idea.
Cheers
Kamil
www.squidoo.com/Fitness_shortcuts
http://hubpages.com/hub/Taekwondo-training-enhancement-weight-vest