Lew Burja credits his long-lasting health to tai chi and kung fu. He started in his 50s after a bout of chest infections and niggling pain in his back, and forty years on and the grandad-of-three is fighting fit.
Credit: SWNS
Credit: SWNS
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 [Birds chirping]
00:19 My name is Lewis Berger. I'm 92 and I'd like to tell you something of my health background
00:31 because I know that my doctors can't understand how it is that at the age of 92 I can run, I can jump,
00:44 I enjoy Kung Fu and Tai Chi.
00:50 [Bell ringing]
00:54 When I was 50 I found myself in trouble. I had been very active as a teacher. I taught games, etc.
01:04 [Bell ringing]
01:07 I left school and I found myself clients and I began sitting down and suddenly I found I seemed to be ill.
01:25 And I realised I was missing the games but then I was running around a lot as a referee in rugby matches
01:38 and training school kids but I was getting a bit old for that.
01:44 [Train passing]
01:49 By accident I found myself watching something which I'd never heard of before called Tai Chi.
02:00 And I don't know why it was, it seemed curious that they moved slowly and yet somehow it seemed powerful.
02:09 Anyways, to cut a long story short, I joined the club.
02:16 [Train passing]
02:20 I never needed to take antibiotics again. That had cured it and I became a bit of a fanatic at it.
02:30 I wasn't good at it, I wasn't naturally good. I was a bit tense, I needed to be able to really, really relax and it took me time.
02:43 [Train passing]
02:54 I had discovered that if I needed medicine I didn't need to take drugs which I felt they did cure me
03:06 but I felt that they were not good in the long run and I was introduced to the world of herbal medicine.
03:13 [Train passing]
03:23 I thought I wasn't standing as well as I should be doing and I told this to the Tai Chi teacher
03:33 and they put me onto a special regime of learning to stand the Tai Chi way and I found myself standing more strongly.
03:50 [Train passing]
04:02 And so here I am, years later, I started at 50 and now 90.
04:10 [Train passing]
04:12 I need to help people because what was good for me, I'm not saying that everyone would be the same, people are different
04:23 and that's one of the things that I love about the Tai Chi and the herbal medicine and that is it's for yourself as an individual.
04:36 The doctors cure the disease, the herbal people and the Tai Chi people build up your strength
04:51 and you, your body fights the disease and that's what I like.
04:57 [Train passing]
05:15 [BLANK_AUDIO]