Tai Chi Journal

Tai Chi and bladder control

I seem to be one of those guys who have a "weak" bladder. By that I mean that I tend to go from not feeling the need to use the toilet to urgently needing to go, and when that sudden urge happens, it comes upon me pretty darn fast. I have never been likely to sleep through the night without a bathroom visit or two (or three). I have to void my bladder more often than most people do during the day, and when I do I usually don't seem to produce enough urine to justify having been in all that much of a hurry.

On rare occasion, though, I can go all night (9 hrs. plus) or an equal time during the day without a pee. When I do that, I have measured my output and found it, while not copious by "normal" standards, a lot greater in volume than my usual "gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now" pee. I therefore know I can occasionally hold at least 9 fl. oz. or 270 ml. without any overweening urgency, while my normal "hafta run to the bathroom" output can be half that.

So I wonder: can Tai Chi help me with bladder control?

Googling on "Tai Chi" and "bladder control" online shows me that the topic of bladder control tends to revolve around (a) the elderly, (b) women of various ages, (c) people with certain conditions like multiple sclerosis, and (d) children, especially bedwetters (which I was, as a child). There's not a lot about reasonably healthy middle-aged men like me. Ah, well.

Speaking of reasonably healthy men, check out this article, which tells of chi gung or qi gong master Tu Chin-sheng and what he teaches his students. The technique called yin diao gung, or just diao gung, literally translates as something like "genitals hanging kung fu." Through practice with heavy weights, three of Tu's male students learned to "pull a flatbed delivery truck across part of a Taipei parking lot" using just their penises!

OK, that's not what Tai Chi is really for ... but:

Both men and women have come to Tu's chi gung classes on account of neck and back problems, joint problems, bladder control problems and other infirmities. Many of them are advanced in years, and if given the chance, nearly all of them will offer testimonial to their various cures.

... Chen Kuo-ying, age 69, came to Taiwan from Indonesia two months ago after hearing about the diao gung truck pull. "Now I have no problem carrying groceries back from the market, and I no longer have to wake up three or four times a night to go to the bathroom," he said thankfully, obviously amazed at the rapid progress he's made.

So, yes, count me as being in the market for a flatbed delivery truck!

posted by eric @ 12:15 PM