A MAN who opened his first Tai Chi For Health class in Keighley year ago has now opened his fourth class.

Philip Sheridan’s latest sessions are being held in Baildon at St Hugh’s Centre.

Philip opened his first Tai Chi for Health class as a social enterprise at AW Dance Studio in Dalton Mills with seed funding from UnLtd.org and the regeneration project Keighley Big Local.

His classes have proved popular and he soon opened a daytime class at the former Bingley Fitness Studio, followed by a third class at Merlin Top Primary School, Braithwaite, in partnership with Keighley Healthy Living.

Bradford Disability Sport and Leisure continue to offer subsidised tai chi classes in Braithwaite via the Get Out Get Active (GOGA) programme.

Philip decided to open his fourth class in Baildon after the positive feedback he received from participants who attended his introductory Tai Chi workshops in partnership with healthy living charity, HALE, in Shipley.

He said it was known that physical activity was very important for people’s long-term health.

He said: “I've used my over 30 years of practice in Tai Chi and other martial arts to recover and maintain my health from a near-fatal road accident that left me with a leg amputation and other serious injuries.”

”The great thing about Tai Chi is that age is no barrier.

“As a low impact form of exercise Tai Chi offers people living with all kinds of health conditions the opportunity to improve the quality of their life by developing their balance, build strength, and relieve stress via deep relaxation.”

Philip said that in his classes caps he taught specially-designed simple forms of Tai Chi developed by Dr Paul Lam, a GP from Australia, who founded the international Tai Chi for Health Insitute.

Philip said: “lots of people would like to learn and practice Tai Chi for health benefits but get put off by the long, complex Tai Chi forms in other schools of Tai Chi which prove very difficult to learn and remember.

“The beauty of the Tai Chi forms taught by the Tai Chi for Health Institute is that a team of medical and Tai Chi experts have distilled the most beneficial parts from different Tai Chi styles into an easy to learn forms that people can practice and enjoy from seated or standing positions.

”I love teaching this style of Tai Chi. It enables anyone to have a go and quickly feel the benefits. The first class is free so we welcome anyone to come along and give it a go.”

Visit huntuntaichi.uk, visit Facebook at@huntuntaichi or call Philip on 07528 959091 for more information.