The room that Crish Hamilton and her group inhabit at Body Fitness and Dance in John Day moonlights as many things.

Every Tuesday and Thursday morning it becomes a hybrid tai chi and kickboxing dojo whose aim is to help the community’s older population regain balance and laugh a little.

Hamilton’s tai chi classes started at the Prairie City and John Day senior centers, then went on pause after the COVID pandemic struck. Right around two years ago she was asked to teach a tai chi class at Body Fitness and Dance, a proposition she accepted.

Hamilton doesn’t want the words “tai chi” to make anybody think they’ll be studying a martial art. Her tai chi classes are aimed more catered toward helping the county’s older residents gain back some of the balance that they may have lost as they’ve aged than toward self-defense.

“We’re not in there for defense,” Hamilton said. “We’re in there, basically, to just improve balance so that as people approach older age and go through older age, they’re doing everything they can to make improvement.”

A tai chi practice involves slow-motion flow — and with that comes a cadre of health benefits, too, including better balance, mobility, and coordination. Tai chi is a mind-body exercise that combines movements, meditation, and deep breathing, according to the American Tai Chi and Qigong Association.

Hamilton also attends a kickboxing class and incorporates some of those exercises into the tai chi routines in her class. The calm and soothing music that accompanies the tai chi portion of the exercises is replaced by ballads of Hamilton’s generation such as “Paint It Black” by The Rolling Stones or “Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Revival once kickboxing gets underway.

“We do tai chi for better balance, and we kind of mix that with a softer version of kickboxing,” Hamilton said. “We kick and punch — (but) not each other.”

With few attendees under the age of 50, Hamilton said that modification, or doing the exercises to the best of your own individual ability and pain level, is key.

Nancy Collins has been going to Hamilton’s tai chi classes at Body Fitness and Dance for about a year and a half now and said she does so to improve her mind, body and soul. The results have been overwhelmingly positive for Collins.

“It keeps me centered,” she said. “It’s really improved my balance, stability and strength.”

Along with those benefits have come another, Collins said: The class has become a very tight-knit group.

Hamilton echoed those sentiments, saying that the group has become a community that often laughs together while exercising together.

“Laughter is good medicine,” Hamilton said.

The class started out with around six attendees two years ago and has steadily grown to as many as 20 participants. Hamilton said attendance really started to pick up over the past year and a half.

There is always room for more, and Hamilton wants those who may find benefit in tai chi to give the art a chance.

“People shouldn’t be afraid of tai chi thinking they’re not in good enough health,” she said. “If they can get in there, if they’re able to get in there and get through the doors, they will be able to do what we do in there.”

Business Beat

WHAT: Tai chi classes aimed at helping seniors regain balance and mobility

WHERE: Body Fitness and Dance, 637 W. Main St. in John Day

HOURS: 9:45 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays

EMPLOYEES: 1