Dr Bruce McFarlane demonstrates
the art of tai chi
Photo credit: courtesy Dr
Bruce McFarlane
|
Soft-spoken rural GP Dr Bruce McFarlane
is calmly telling me how he discovered health, happiness
and inner peace by going round and round in circles.
He doesn't mean the rat race that is practising medicine
in Canada today. No, the semi-retired physician credits
his zen-like serenity to the slow, rotational movements
and weight-shifting that is the art of Taoist tai chi.
And you would too, he says, if you gave it a try.
"We physicians have lost insight
into our physical well-being and have been seduced by
high-tech and chemical solutions to our health problems,"
says Dr McFarlane, who's been practising tai chi for
13 years. "Incorporating activities, like Taoist tai
chi, into our lifestyles has a much greater impact on
our lives."
TAO
ZEALOT
I met Dr McFarlane last November at the annual Canadian
Medical Association Leaders' Forum, where he was giving
morning tai chi classes to the event's participants.
He said he hoped it would get doctors to put the saying
"Physician, heal thyself" into practice. "The forum
is to promote leadership qualities in physicians, but
many of them don't even get the minimum required amount
of weekly physical activity. Having good health is an
essential ingredient in being a good leader," he says,
adding that this is doubly true for physicians, "who
should lead their patients by example."
Taoist tai chi is the practice
of a set of 108 spiralling and stretching movements,
combined with a devotion to healing and revitalizing
both the body and mind. Dr McFarlane has a more poetic
way to describe it. "It's grace and beauty in motion,"
he says.
The day he first came across tai
chi was anything but beautiful. In fact it was the most
tragic day of his life. "Our second-born, three-year-old
son had been sick with brain cancer. I remember coming
out of the Toronto Sick Kids Hospital the day he died
and I saw a man practising a series of peculiar, but
beautiful movements in the parking lot," he says. This
first image of tai chi stuck with him for almost 20
years, but it wasn't until 1993 that he took it up.
"In the process, I changed my life," he says.
HEALING
PROCESS
A few years later, he traded in family medicine for
ER rotations at Markdale Hospital, to allow more time
for his tai chi activities. Although some of his colleagues
are still sceptical about his zeal for Eastern medicine,
he says that most of the doctors he talks to understand
the physical and mental benefits of tai chi.
"When physicians see something
that works for their patients, they're usually willing
to prescribe it. It's my job to show them that you can
put 'tai chi' on a prescription pad," he says, adding,
"And you won't have to worry about the side-effects!"
However, getting into tai chi isn't
as easy as it looks. Despite the fact that tai chi can
be tailored to any age or health level, Dr McFarlane
says it takes a while before one can truly embrace it.
"When I first started, I was a perfectionist, as most
doctors are. I wanted to do all the moves without making
any mistakes... but Taoist tai chi is about letting
go, not tensing up. You have to become child-like to
re-learn how to use your muscles and joints. I'm still
learning about myself," he says.
Though it wasn't easy at first,
Dr McFarlane learned to appreciate both the physical
and spiritual healing properties of this form of tai
chi, which emphasizes the recovery and maintenance of
lost health.
Such is his dedication to the art,
after he retired from hospital work he decided to volunteer
as the medical director of the International Taoist
Tai Chi Society. Dr McFarlane co-administers the society's
health recovery program at its 100-acre facility and
trains other Taoist tai chi instructors how to help
people with illnesses get back into good health. Luckily
the headquarters happen to be based in Orangeville,
ON, just an hour's drive south of the 150-acre farm
Dr McFarlane and his wife Karen have shared since 1972
and where they raised their five kids.
In the course of our conversation
Dr McFarlane mentions he delivered his two youngest
at home himself. Later, as we ended our chat, Dr McFarlane
confessed he was not actually at his most serene that
day: he was a little distracted because his eldest child,
Corinna, was at the farm, about to give birth to his
first grandchild. This time, however, two mid-wives
will be handling the delivery.
|
