The Orange County Register, July 7th, 2007
IRVINE The professor in the necktie sinks into a crouch, then slashes the air with his hands.
He is unsmiling. He is proficient. He’s kind of scary.
“Yeah, damn well I can fight,” said Shin Lin, who is highly skilled in Chinese martial arts, particularly tai chi, the “soft” style that is all about the “ultimate harmony” of finding the perfect balance between yin and yang, fast and slow, hard and soft.
Wearing slacks, a dress shirt and dress shoes, Lin shows a visitor a few moves, concentrating on the slow, rhythmic movement of the surf in nearby Newport Beach.
Then he goes back into professor mode, explaining stuff.
At 62, Lin has the wise authority of a seasoned scholar. He is happy to answer all your questions but in the order he prefers.
On a recent afternoon, after several minutes of touring his lab in UC Irvine’s School of Biological Sciences and describing the scientific uses of each gadget, gizmo and machine, Lin stops in front of a familiar box-shaped contraption.
“This is what we use to heat up our lunch,” he said of the microwave.
Mercifully, the warrior-scholar also has a sense of humor.
“I’m just a nerdy professor,” he says, “who can really fight.”
•••
Lin has one of the coolest-sounding jobs in higher education.
For the record, he’s a professor in UCI’s departments of developmental and cell biology, physiology and biophysics, and biomedical engineering – and an internationally known expert on cellular movement.
He’s also director of the Laboratory for Mind/Body Signaling and Energy Research – and that’s just cool.
At the mind/body lab at UCI, Lin and his team of about 15 researchers use science to measure the physical effects of tai chi, qigong – controlled breathing coordinated with movement – and other Eastern-based mind/body practices.
Lin aims to generate hard evidence in a field that long has lacked scientific proof. Sure, people who practice tai chi say it makes them feel good, but what exactly is happening in their bodies?
“If your neighbor tells you how good tai chi is for him, well, that’s not good enough,” Lin said.
He doesn’t claim to have scientifically proven the existence of the at-least 2,000-year-old concept of chi, a person’s life force or vital energy.
Chi (pronounced CHEE) is abstract. Heat, electricity, magnetism, light – these things can be measured scientifically. That’s where Lin comes in.
Using a collection of technologies from around the world, including infrared cameras, photon counters and cell-culture chambers, Lin measures such things as blood flow, brain wave patterns and heart-rate variability while subjects practice tai chi as they are wired to machines.
Findings: Tai chi has health benefits that other exercises such as lifting weights or riding a bicycle do not.
An old saying states, “Blood is the mother of chi.” Lin’s research has found that practicing tai chi sharply increases the rate of blood flow – a good thing. Mental stress restricts blood flow.
Other tests have shown that tai chi generates a dramatic increase in electrical conductance.
And the healthier a person is, the higher the electrical conductance at his acupuncture points, Lin said.
Lin is generating in his lab data that back up what adherents of tai chi have been saying for years: It relaxes them; it makes them mentally sharper; it makes them feel more rested.
“A lot of this sounds like common sense,” Lin said. “But until recently, there’s been no evidence that mind/body exercises can really improve a person’s health in a measurable way.”
In the past decade, Western medicine has been paying more attention to so-called complementary and alternative treatments, such as tai chi, acupuncture, meditation, herbal remedies and pressure-point massage, to supplement long-standing Western-based medical practices.
But doctors are demanding that more research be done on the benefits of tai chi and other Eastern mind/body practices and therapies.
UCI is a leader in such research, having established in 2000 the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine, which promotes wellness through the bridging of Eastern and Western medicine.
UCI recruited Lin in 1997 from Johns Hopkins University, where he held various positions for 23 years, including associate dean of research and graduate studies for the school of arts and sciences.
Lin recently was named to the National Advisory Council for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, an appointment that further cements his stature as a pioneer in researching the physiological effects of Eastern mind/body practices and therapies.
•••
In the bright green and cream hallways outside his lab at UCI, Lin elegantly practices a few more tai chi moves.
He doesn’t break a sweat or start to breathe heavily. He’s a study in precise, controlled movement.
“Unfortunately, tai chi has an incorrect image now: that it’s just for old people, that it’s all slow,” Lin said.
Not so.
As a specialist in the chen and yang styles of tai chi, Lin can erupt into sharp, pointed movements. He’s been perfecting his craft since his early teens.
Growing up in Hong Kong in the 1950s with a businessman father and a mother who was headmistress of a high school, Lin recalls, he read about martial arts heroes before kung fu movies exploded on the scene.
He got interested in the harder-hitting White Crane style of kung fu around age 14 and studied under the teacher who taught the late action-film star Bruce Lee.
Later, Lin gravitated to the softer martial arts of tai chi and qigong, which remain his passion.
He says the research he and his team are conducting could soon help make tai chi and qigong as common medical alternatives in California and other states as is acupuncture.
Lin does a few more tai chi moves, then prepares to head home to his estate overlooking the campus.
His wife, Diane, is a UCI associate professor of developmental and cell biology.
Lin’s youngest son, Payton, 25, is a third-year doctoral student in biomedical engineering.
Oldest son Howe Lin, 33, is spinning around in an entirely different universe: He’s a widely known disc jockey on the Hollywood club scene, a regular at such hot spots as Circus.
Does Lin ever go to the club to watch his son?
He cracks a smile and shakes his head.
Nope.
Seems some things are too intimidating even for a tai chi master.
Shin Lin
