Tai Chi for Beginners 01 “Tai Chi Fundamentals”

Hello and welcome to Tai Chi class. I'm Dr. Daniel Hoover and assisting me today is Veronica Lee Hoover. We're going to begin with a traditional greeting. In this traditional greeting, we are covering our right fist with our left hand. Basically what this means is we're showing self-control. You can hit me, I can hit you, but really I'm showing peace and restraint because Tai Chi is actually a martial art, but we use it for healing and that might be why you're here today. So let's get started. Horse dance. Imagine you're sitting on a horse. You want to focus on your connection to the earth. So feel the springiness in your legs. We want to be mindful of our posture. So sit up tall. Let those shoulders roll back. Very good, Veronica. And we're going to start by opening up the waist. So here we go. Just turning your waist, letting your hands move freely. Tapping your front and your back. But a little secret, a little treasure here is you want to specifically allow your hands to gently tap your kidneys in the back. The reason we do this is because in traditional Chinese medicine, the kidney is where our Qi is stored. It's our essence. You can think of it kind of like your mojo. And since this is Tai Chi, we want our Qi to flow and circulate throughout today's practice. You might increase a little bit more each time your range of motion. Very good. Okay, so now we're going to transition into taking care of our knees. So we'll bring our feet together. And we really want to take care of our knees. Come on down here and warm up your knees. Next, we're going to support on the side of our knees. And throughout today's practice, you're going to notice Veronica is going to be modifying a lot of the times how we're going to do these different movements. So we want to start with some circles. Start the circles with your knees. Remember, if you take care of your knees, they'll take care of you. Gradually increase that range of motion until you find a range that works for you. It challenges you, but doesn't hurt. Okay, other direction. Going a little farther. Remember, this is a practice, it's an art. So you want to listen to and honor what your body tells you. Very good. Come on back up. Next, we're going to use a pressure point used in traditional Chinese medicine. Take your middle finger and we're going to press firmly in the back of our knee here. I'm going to turn around so you can see in the back of your knee, we've got this crease right here. Find the very middle back point, your knee. Very good. And press firmly. This is a master pressure point for the low back and a great local point for circulation in your knees. All right. Back into our horse stance. You might notice the size of your horse changes a little bit. That's okay. Sometimes you like a wider horse, sometimes a narrow horse. See what's comfortable for you. We want to open up the muscles in our neck and our chest. So we're going to interlock our fingers behind you. I'm going to turn like this and roll those shoulders back and down as you straighten your arms. Good. Notice how the chest is opening up. We want to bring our chin back just a little bit. Remember, this is going to help us tremendously with our posture. And rotate the neck. We're going to start going to the left. We'll go a few times each direction. You may have found Tai Chi because your doctor recommended it. Either for posture, balance, blood pressure. There's many reasons to practice Tai Chi. Other direction. Really take your head into its full range of motion. A little farther each time. If you hear popping in your neck, it means you're working. Good job. Okay. Let's go back into our horse stance. One more thing we really want to warm up before we get into the meat of the Tai Chi practice today are our hips. So hands on the hips. And we're going to shift our weight to our right leg. Shift your weight while you straighten your left leg. And bring your hips back and around the other side. Shifting weight left. Bring your hips forward. And again around. Shifting weight right. This is from a Qigong series that is called dragon drinks from the river. So can you see it? The dragon drinks from the river and then back up. When we get to the front, this last time, really stretch and other direction. Shift weight left, hips go back. We don't have to go too, too slow yet. We're not fully into our Tai Chi practice. You just want to focus on that ball and socket joint in your hips here. Going a little farther each time. Can you feel that? I can. All right. Very good. Back into horse stance. We're going to transition now into the energy work. Tai Chi Chuan. It's a martial art, but it's also an energy, energy art. So what we want to do is focus on that energy. Imagine the circulation as it flows down your hands. So you don't want any kinks in the hose. If my arm is a hose, I don't want to kink, right? I want to open up that angle and focus on the energy ball between our palms here. You can imagine that there is a flow of life force. In Star Wars, they call it the force. Literally, there's a biological energetic circuit passing from hand to hand. Want you to focus on that. So we have our Tai Chi ball. Now let's expand that ball a little bit. Breathe in as you expand it. And out as you compress it. Good. Keep the shoulders relaxed. Remember your posture, standing straight up, elongating your spine and moving the palms out and in. Now this time, let's keep our palms in. And we want to palpate our own energy ball here. So you're going to bring your ball in and out. There's no wrong or right way to do this. But the purpose of this is to get the sense of that energy, that heat, that warmth between your palms because we really want to circulate throughout today's practice. Palpation simply means to feel what the hands with the eyes cannot see. What I like to do to maximize the feeling is bring the ball in a little closer, bring the hands close together until you can feel something. See what that something is and explore it a little bit. Then expand out a little bit more and see when and where you feel the subtle sensation. Very good. You got it, huh? Awesome. So just keep practicing and then you're going to keep growing and growing your ball. All right. I can feel that at home that people have got it. All right. So back into our horse stance. Bring your ball right here, right back in front. We're going to begin to move that ball with our body. Tai Chi is about integration of movements. Shift your weight to your right leg. Turn your waist to the right and shift your weight left, minding your posture. As we shift our weight, we don't want to lean, okay? Stay straight up and down. At about 45 degrees, you start turning the other way. Good. And this time, as we shift our weight, turn the ball over. Your left hand is on top as you turn towards the left. Good. As you shift your weight to your right, turn the ball over again. And what we want to do is just keep that flow, keep flowing. Veronica is going to do her best to keep in sync with me and I with her and you with us. So you may feel tempted to go faster, but we really want to practice slowing down. We're going to release our ball now and transition into wave hands. So you're no longer holding onto the ball. The top hand is facing you as you shift your weight. Left hand is on top facing me. I don't want to blind myself, have it just underneath my eyes. Keeping the shoulders relaxed, Veronica is doing a great job. Notice her shoulders are down and the elbow is down. So it's like her hand is floating in water. The switching of the hands matches the shifting of her weight. She's using her waist to turn. Notice she's not doing this. It's moving together. We were talking about that integration of movement. Remember to breathe. What we're doing is we're repatterning the body throughout our day. We tend to go like this or beat a computer like this. What this does is allow an opportunity for us to reset our posture, open up that chest and relearn how to just simply slow down, remembering to breathe. And as we do this wave hand sequence, also known as wave hands like clouds, keep checking in with your posture. We want to avoid speeding up or slowing down. Remember, we're mostly water, right? So if I'm in the flow and I speed up, what does that do to the water inside my body or the energy in the body? Creates turbulence. So we want to remove the turbulence from our body, from our nervous systems, relax and flow. Now, you may be having a difficult time relaxing because you're thinking, is he ever going to end? Is this going to end? We're almost done. But remember, patience, presence. Don't worry about what's next. This is the quintessential practice in Tai Chi Quan. Later, we'll be learning Tai Chi movements for a whole form. But really all you need is this. We've got the integration of the weight shift. We've got the regulation of the breath. We're slowing down one fluid, constant movement and also a gentle smile. See how peaceful she looks. This is really why we practice Tai Chi brings peace. All right, very good. Let your hands float up. We're going to single whip. Same idea, shifting your weight forward and back. And now the arms are going in a on a horizontal plane. Again, there's that water. It's floating, really lubricate that shoulder joint. Feel it move. Allow your hands to float off to the sides. Palms up, big cleansing breath in and softly. That's our warm up. How are you feeling? If you did it, well, you are either feeling calm or invigorated or both. Keep it up. We're going to transition now into the Tai Chi movements. Veronica, do you mind joining me over here? In the Tai Chi form, we have to learn how to walk. Then we'll add the hand movements. We're going to bring our feet together. Stand tall. Remember posture. This is a great opportunity to reprogram neuromuscular reeducation. Bring those shoulder blades back. I'm going to bring your shoulders back just a little and down. Shift your weight to your right leg and step out with your left. We're going to go heel to toe. Tai Chi reminds us of Yin and Yang or Yin Yang. Give and receive. Toes up. Open the feet out. Shift your weight forward. Right foot comes in and out. Heel to toe. Now let's pause here for a moment. We don't want to continue on with poor posture. So I want you to do is look down at your feet and notice there's a space between your legs. So, Veronica, that's great. We can we have two of these planks right here going between her legs. If I were to step out on one plank here, I'm not as balanced, right? So want to make sure that when you step out, step out at about a 45 degree angle. Now feel how you're rooted and connected to the earth, even though we're not on our horse right now. Continuing on, receive. Toes up and out. Shift your weight forward. Heel to toe. We give and receive. One more time. Don't worry about the hands. We'll bring those in in just a moment. Heel toe. Very good. Let's head on back over here. I think you've got it. So they're ready, right? OK, Tai Chi ball. Remember the ball? We did this in the warm up. Right hand is on top. Oh, excuse me. I'm just going to step into position here. Feet together. Same footwork. This first movement is called parting the wild horse's mane. So imagine there's a horse right here. Here's the horse's head, the back of the horse's neck. And what we're going to do is simply part the wild horse's mane. The hair on the back of the horse, we're basically combing it. OK, so here we go. Relax into your body. Integrate your posture. Step out left, heel to toe, and we're going to part the wild horse's mane. Again, we give one and receive. Keep the left hand on top and then scoop the energy back into your Tai Chi ball here, continuing forward. Give, receive. Now, as you start to find your groove with us here, I want you to pay attention to your cadence. We want to avoid speeding up or slowing down. Remembering to breathe. Good posture. Continuing on, I'm going to observe Veronica now. Notice how her arms look soft. Her body movements are soft. They're graceful. Yet she's composed and firm within herself. She's got a good, powerful frame here. But at the same time is gentle. So we want to balance that yin and yang. A good, solid frame that's dynamic and soft. One more time. And we'll pause at the end. Remember we said this is a martial art. So this is actually a martial arts move. Let's check it out. You ready? Okay, so we'll get ready to punch in. Front position. We bow. And the bowing at, at the beginning, you remember it was about a greeting. I mentioned the punch and the self-control. This is more for me than for her because she's about to punch me and I just want to make sure she's going to be nice. You'll be nice. All right. Left leg forward, please. I'm going to demonstrate parting the wild horse's mane. So we're in a combative situation here. She's going to punch in slowly. I hope I shift my weight back. And notice I don't even have to do anything about this punch. I can run away. I'm out of range. But she's pretty aggressive. So I want to make sure I take care of this right now. So we're ready to go. Punch comes in, I shift my weight and I grab my ball. Here's the ball. Catch her wrist. Step out, heel to toe. And I'm parting the mane. I come up into the armpit, locking, and just turn my waist. Very easy. I'm not using a lot of power. Moving on. Feet together. I'm going to step over to the side here. We're going to prepare our hands on the right side of our bodies. Brush knee. Step out, heel to toe. And just like it indicates, we're brushing in front of our knee and then we push. Now we're going to pause here for a moment. Notice your posture. Are your feet wide? Are your shoulders relaxed? And you've got a good frame. Receive. Prepare your hands on the left side of your body. Heel to toe and slowly. Out. Receive. Veronica is going to continue on. Remember, you don't have to step as far as we are. She's taking about a moderate step. This next time, let's do more of a shallow step. Slow and easy. It's not about how far you step. It's about staying within your own power. One more time. So if I step all the way here, that might look good. I might feel cool, but I'm going to have a hard time getting back up. OK, go ahead and pause for just a moment. So so watch that. Watch her recovery versus my recovery. Going to receive and then come forward. Look how much easier it is for her. I got to really work to get forward. OK, so this is the first class. Thank you. Stay within your own comfort zone and we can push it as we move along. Well, we showed you partying the wild horse's mane. Let's go ahead and show them brush me ready. We're going to demonstrate how this works in a martial application. Left leg forward, please. Veronica is going to punch in. I shift my weight, right? I'm going to meet that punch. Open square up. Rest my hand on her chest and I just shift my weight forward. I don't need a lot of power. I'm just within my own body. I've got my frame and it's like that. We're going to change it up a little bit. Left leg forward. This time she's going to throw a kick. Kick comes in. I'm going to meet that kick and go ahead and kick within range. So if I don't do this right, I'm getting kicked. All right. Let's see what happens here. Kick comes in. I shift my weight. I'm going to meet that kick. Step out. I'm going to follow her. Center of gravity. Thank you, Veronica. All right. Those are the first two movements in the Tai Chi form. It's our first class. We don't want to give you too much and we want to leave you with something to practice. But where are we going? We're going to be practicing the Tai Chi 24 form. That means there's 24 movements within the form. Veronica and I are now going to demonstrate the full form so you can see what we have to look forward to. Hopefully, by the end of this series, you'll feel comfortable enough to put the pieces together and complete this whole form. Ready? We'll come on over here. Starting position. Feet together. Now, you did great up to this point. If you feel like taking a break, go ahead. If you're feeling like you just want to jump right in all the way, do your best to follow. But don't be too hard on yourself. There's some moves that we haven't shown you yet. So have fun with it or sit back and relax. Tai Chi 24. Starting. Step out with our left. Breathing in as we bring our wrists up. And out. Lowering your center of gravity. Shift your weight right, opening your left leg. Reach out. Gather your Tai Chi ball. Bring that ball in. And step out. Heel to toe as we part the horse's name. Receive. We'll do this three times. Gather that Tai Chi ball. Heel to toe. Now, I know most of you can follow us these first few moves. So if you're feeling good, come on back up and join us. Tai Chi ball. Parting the horse's name. We have four transitions. The first one, half step forward. Sit back into that right leg and white crane spreads wings. Imagine your crane. You open those wings up. We're looking left and right. Did you see the double block there? Brush knee three times. Heel to toe and push. Continuing on. Notice Veronica's keeping maintaining a slow cadence. She's not speeding up or slowing down. Opening up, completing the motion. Very good. Hands are on the right side. Stepping out. Brush knee. Second transition. Half step forward. Sit back in that right leg. Your hands are on guard. Heel down as we strum the lute. We're going to bring the cadence up just a little bit here for repulse monkey. It's like we're a monkey swinging through the trees. Four times, stepping back with our left and back with the right. Notice how the shoulder follows the hips. All these movements are connected. Integrate your movements while staying relaxed. Ward off. Imagine your arm is a shield. You're pushing everything away. Then we grasp the bird's tail. It's a very beautiful, a beautiful series here. And we press. Keep your arms open. Clearing. Use your whole body and push. Receive. Other side. We have our ball. We open up and she pushes me back. And then she pulls. And then I come back and oh, I can't get in because she's staying within her own power. And full body push. Shift your weight back. Turn towards the front for single whip. Right wrist comes out. Open left and palm. Wave hands. Remember, we did this in the warmup. We're going to wave our hands to the left. Stepping in and right. Stepping gently. I like to imagine I'm stepping on clouds here. If I step too firmly, I fall through the clouds. Want to connect with the resistance in that cloud and root into it while maintaining a good posture. One more time. Looking good. She's so peaceful. I'm not trying to correct her about anything, but she's flown and cruising. Looks great. Single whip. One more time. Wrist comes out. Open palm. High pad on horse. You're going to clear. Left foot comes up and down. We'll show you what these movements mean in the future series. Kick. Notice how Veronica modified her kick. You don't have to kick as high as I did. You can kick higher than I did or just kick your foot out like Veronica did. Left heel kick. Open. It's okay to modify. Snake creeps through the grass. Step out, sit. Your left hand is the snake. Snake strikes and recoils. Golden rooster stands on one leg. Very good. One more time. Stepping out. Sit, sit, sit, or don't go down as far as Veronica did. Snake strikes, recoils. Golden rooster stands on one leg. Place that foot down. Great job modifying Veronica. It does not matter how high your foot goes. Open to the right for J-Lady works the shuttles. Receive. Gather ball. One more time, other side. Notice the high block and the palm strike. Half step forward for needle at bottom of C. Now this is the final transition. Opening up for fan back. Shift weight right. Look to your right. Shift weight left. We're going to step out and block. Step forward with your left and punch clear your wrist and forearm and final push. Turn back towards us. Back into a horse stance. Come on down. Big cleansing breath in, open and feet together. Stand tall. Remember that inner smile. Feel the circulation in your body. How do you feel? What's different? Now you may, if you followed us, you may have felt completely lost. And that's okay because this is the start of your Tai Chi practice. This is a process. We invite you to join us. Each new class and trust in the process. Believe me, this was very difficult for me at first. I like to play sports. I like to be out there and move fast. But the slowdown was very difficult. But that's also where I found some of the greatest rewards in my life. We'd like to thank you for joining us. And we look forward to you continuing with Tai Chi. We show our etiquette to you and to each other. Thank you and see you soon.