Meet the 92-year-old Leeds grandpa who does martial arts every day

Yorkshire Evening Post

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

Transcript

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]

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