Elva Arthy

As Master Trainer for Dr Paul Lam’s Tai Chi for Arthritis (TCA) program since 2002, Elva has conducted and taught in over thirty-five Instructor Training Courses in Australia, New Zealand, USA and Korea, and as Master Trainer in Queensland has issued nearly fifteen hundred Instructor Certifications to over twelve hundred participants.

In addition, she has assisted Dr Lam in the training of new Master Trainers of the TCA Instructor Training program for Australian and Korean TCA Master Trainers in Sydney and Korea. Elva has taught Tai Chi for Health at beginners to advanced levels at International Tai Chi Workshops and Conferences in USA, New Zealand, Korea & Australia. She has also been a registered licensed partner, presenter and assessor with Fitness Australia of Dr Lam’s Tai Chi for Arthritis (TCA) program, issuing certificates for 15 CECs to Fitness professionals in the CEC Fitness Instructor training program.

However, Elva has now retired as Master Trainer after more than twenty years with Dr Paul Lam and the Tai Chi for Health Institute (TCHI) and is now focusing exclusively on teaching in her own classes in Gentle Exercise and Tai Chi Qigong for Health in the Redlands Coast community Queensland.

As a professional teacher of movement, dance and exercise for over fifty years, she has continuously run her own school as an Aerobics Instructor, Personal Trainer, Group Exercise Instructor and Older Adults Trainer accredited with Fitness Australia and in the early 1980s through the Queensland Keep Fit Association (QKFA) pioneering the specialised field of Gentle Exercise for older adults.

She is also accredited with Alice Liping Yuan’s Exercise Medicine’s Tai Chi for Health and Falls Injury and Prevention Program and is a Master Trainer and Black Belt in Tai Chi for Martial Arts for Health & Self Defence and Brown Belt in Goju Ryu Karate-do with Gentle Arts of Self Defence affiliated with Sakurakan-QUBBA.

In December 2006, Elva presented the paper on How to Teach Tai Chi for Health Effectively at the First International Tai Chi for Health Conference held in Seoul, Korea. She is the Tai Chi Instructor and presenter on the DVD titled INSPIRE - Tai Chi and Yoga for Adults with Bleeding Disorders produced by Haemophilia Foundation Australia and distributed in Australia and overseas including Europe, India, USA, UK and Canada released April 2005. She is also the author of Raging Ageing Gentle Exercise Manual for Design and Delivery, a manual used as a resource for health and fitness professionals and carers of older adults.

Through her own school, Elva pioneered the Tai Chi for Health, Advanced Instructor Training Course to provide an extension and alternative pathway for TCA Leaders and others who did not wish to pursue the martial arts Level 1 Coach accreditation for instructor training. This course, focused on a modern, secular and scientific understanding of safety principles, teaching methods and offered an In-Depth Study of Sun Style Tai Chi at an advanced level. Elva co-authored and published– Tai Chi Dreaming: A Scientific Study of Tai Chi for Health as Mind-Body Exercise for Health, Fitness & Wellbeing (first published in 2009 under the title of Australia Dreaming: Advanced Instructor Training Course) - the textbook for the Tai Chi for Health Advanced Instructor Training program.

Elva also is the creator of the beautiful Australia Dreaming 15 form Sun Style Qigong. The first performance of Australia Dreaming Qigong was at Dr Lam's International Tai Chi for Health workshop at Connecticut in the USA in June 2003. The fact that Tai Chi and Qigong had an Australian context of nature which referenced and respected First Australians had a powerful impact on the participants, with the realisation that Tai Chi and Qigong was not something that was exclusively Chinese but was something powerful that transcended cultural boundaries and belongs to the world, to common humanity.

Thank you Dr Paul Lam for your pioneering and genius in introducing the transformative brilliance of Sun Lutang to Tai Chi Qigong for Health in a modern age and to Australia and the World!!

For Elva's - Australia Dreaming: Tribute to Ancestors Sun Style Tai Chi - see Qigong for Health at
www.taichiredlands.com