Tai Chi for Beginners 02 “Balance and Flow”

Hello and welcome to Tai Chi class. I'm Dr. Daniel Hoover and assisting me is Veronica Hoover. In today's class, we'll be focusing on balance and flow. Remember, Tai Chi is a healing martial art. We'll be focusing on the healing aspect as well as the internal martial arts aspects. Let's get started. We want to get back into our horse stance, feet about shoulder width apart, lengthen your spine, shoulders down and relax, and waist opening. We're just going to gently turn from side to side. Allow your hands to gently tap your body. And remember, you want to tap your kidneys in the back. In traditional Chinese medicine, the kidney is where we store our essence or our longevity, energy, also known as chi. Just a few more times, going a little farther each time. Really open up and relax, loosen up the shoulders, loosen up the waist. All right, that feels good. Let's bring our feet together. And now we want to take care of our knees. Remember, you take care of your knees, they'll take care of you. So nice warming of the knees with your hands. Now we're going to support our knees. Make sure your feet are close together, knees together, and circle. So pick a direction and start to rotate. Now as you see, Veronica is modifying. Find a range of motion that works for you. And other direction. When I say find a range that works for you, I mean, find one that challenges you but doesn't hurt. If it hurts, you need to back off a little bit and then we'll work towards that range later on. Very good. We want to stimulate a very important acupuncture point in the back of our knees. Take your middle finger and you're going to press firmly in the back of your knee. So I'm going to turn here so you can see in the very middle point in the crease or the popliteal fossa, there's a point here that ought to be a little tender. Press firmly until you feel the tenderness and we'll just hold for a few seconds. This is a great local point for the knee, as well as a master acupuncture point for the low back. Perfect. Back to our horse stance, but let's make it a little wider this time. And we're going to open up the hips a little bit. This is a modified dragon drinks from the river. Shift your weight to the right, straightening your left leg. Bring the hips back. And we're going to go in one big circle. Make sure you push the hips forward, stretching the ligaments in the front of your hips. Again, you see Veronica's modifying. You want to go towards your end range where it hurts good. You know what I mean? It hurts a little, but it also feels good and therapeutic. Push the hips forward, forward, forward, stretch, and other direction. Shifting weight left, bring the hips around and take this opportunity. This is your stretch, right? So you may do it. A range that is between the range of Veronica and myself. So make it your own. Enjoy last time and push the hips forward. Very good. Back to our horse stance. Remember your posture here. We finally want to open up the lung meridian, our chest, shoulders, and our neck muscles. We're going to do it all the same time by interlocking our fingers in the back. I'll turn around so you can see like this. Roll your shoulders back and down as you straighten your arms. Very good. Notice how the chest muscles are opening up. Feel how your lungs are expanding and we'll do head circles. Turning our head to the left. Slow, deep circles. Remember to breathe and other direction. One more time. Go a little farther this time. Very good. Back to horse stance. It's time to work now. We said today's class is partly about balance. So we're into our first balance exercise. In the Tai Chi form, you will see it towards the end of the form and it's called Golden Rooster stands on one leg. Ready? Feel your connection to the earth. Feel the springiness in your legs. Again, mind your posture and starting. We're going to shift our weight to our left leg and empty your right leg here. Empty it and then bring your right leg up with your right hand. Ideally, you want your leg parallel with the ground, but it doesn't matter how high your leg is because we're practicing, right? So you may notice, yeah, Veronica is modifying. If your foot goes down, just bring it right back up. Relax. Posture and breathe. Settle into the posture. If you start to get a little wobbly up here like this, lower your center of gravity. Slowly bring your leg down. Back into horse stance. Transfer your weight to the other side. Now your left leg and hand come up together as the right hand comes down. This is a great rehabilitative exercise that we use in our clinic for pre and post-operative patients that had either a knee, ankle, or hip injury. It's a form of neuromuscular reeducation. Great way to reprogram, retrain the muscles in your weight-bearing joints. Relax. Remember to lower your center of gravity slightly and slowly bring your leg down. And center. Breathe. If you remember only one thing from today's practice, this is the thing to do. I recommend timing how long you can stand on one leg and then test yourself from week to week. We're going to review one other exercise we did in the last episode, which is called wave hands or wave hands like clouds. Form your Tai Chi ball. Remember to feel that connection between your palms. The Chi that's radiating out between your two hands here. Posture and shift your weight to your right leg. Turn to the right slowly and shift your weight left. Careful not to lean too much. Keep going. Shift your weight left. Notice how Veronica standing straight up. She shifts her weight. And then the upper torso starts to turn. This time we're going to turn the ball over. Your left hand is on top. Shifting your weight and turn. Still keeping that connection between your palms. As you shift your weight, switch your hands. Notice how soft her hands appear. But they're also full. They're not empty. They're not stiff. Just awake and alive. Wave hands. Her top hands going to be facing her just underneath the eye level. Because remember, this is a block and you have to be able to see the person in front of you. So we're cruising here. We're going to do this for about a minute or so. I really want you to find your groove. So I'm going to get into my groove to shift the weight, turn your waist. Notice it's the waist that move the arm. The arms not moving like this. It's the waist and the arm together. Also, we want the elbow low. If I'm up like this, I'm working too hard, right? I'm incongruent with an ideal posture. So I'm going to keep the elbow down and relaxed. Sit within your own frame. Find the power within the frame. At the same time, you want to be dynamic. Moving into the other focus of today's practice flow. So find your flow with us. See if you can sink in, get in sync with us. Like a school of Tai Chi students. Here we go. Remember to breathe. Shift your weight. Turn. Last time we said this is the practice we want you to work on between episodes. I hope you have been. If you're starting to feel more comfortable with this, we're going to add a challenge. You ready for it? Slow down. You might be thinking to yourself, wait a second, I was going slow. I apologize, but this is where the real Tai Chi is. This is where you find the treasure within Tai Chi. Slowing down past your comfort zone, bringing awareness to where you're holding tension and release it. See how slow you can go with a fluid movement while remaining relaxed. What we tend to see is our heart rate drops. The blood pressure goes down. Our nervous system relaxes. We get out of that fight or flight when we're like this all day under stress. We don't even know we're under stress. We're just walking around like this. And we start to change our nervous system from fight or flight to parasympathetic. Where all the tissues and the cells in our body heal, where we rest and digest. Very good. We're just going to close it up by going into single width. Let your hands float up moving forward and back. Same fluidity of movement, shoulders forward and back. This is called single whip. We'll be doing it in the form later. Let your hands float out to the sides. Palms up, big cleansing breath in as you bring your hands up and out and down. So slow and controlled, balanced. Very good. Bring your feet back underneath your body. You may notice you have excessive chi or energy flowing out of your hands. So let's take this opportunity to put it back in our body. So there's an area that you're working on, like maybe your low back, your shoulders, go ahead and put your hands on yourself now for a little bit of chi self massage. Maybe you're going to have a very mentally active week. So you can put your hands on top of your head. Are you working on your vision? Put your hands in front of your eyes. And this is a really nice way to feel the energy coming out of your, out of your palms. We like to close by bringing our hands back onto our heart. Remember the farthest, remember the farthest distance we travel in our lives is from our head to our heart. And in traditional Chinese medicine, we say the mind floats and we want to anchor our mind back into our heart. Very good. We're going to now move into the Tai Chi form. The first two moves that we learned was parting the wild horse's mane, ready? Ball, right hand on top. Step out, left foot, heel to toe and we part the horse's mane. The second move we learned is brush knee. Hands are on the right side of your body. Same footwork. Step forward, heel to toe. And brush knee, your left hand turns in front of your brush and turn up in front of your knee and your right hand pushes. Make sure you're squared up and you push. Those are the two main moves we did last time. Very good. We're going to review in the context of the form. Veronica, shall we head over here and set up? We'll do the first part of the form up until the brush knee and the first transition. Thank you. Feet together. Remember to stand tall. This first move is known as Wu Chi and it's a standing meditation. Whenever we get in this position, remember to take this opportunity to center, focus, and it's no thought. So just a moment of no thought. Starting, step out with your left. Breathing in as you gently let your wrist come up to shoulder level. Breathe. Lowering your center of gravity, increasing your connection with the earth. Shift your weight, right? Lift your left toes. Open shift weight left. Gather your Tai Chi ball. Bring the Tai Chi ball in. And we're going to do parting the horses main three times. Notice how we give one. And then we receive one. Just like yin and yang. Gather the ball on the left side. Continuing forward, heel to toe. Parting the wild horses may and receive. Remember to keep your spine tall, straight up and down. All heel to toe and part the main. First transition step. We half step up, sit back into that right leg. And white crane spreads wings. Open those wings up. Turn left and right. Did you see the double block in there and brush me three times. Continuing on, I'm gonna take a look at Veronica's form. Notice you squared up going straight this way. She received one and now she's preparing to give one. I notice her hand is lining up with me. And that would push me back. One more time. Brush me. We prepare on the right side of our body. Continuing forward, heel to toe and brush me. Transition step. Follow with your right foot slowly. Sit back and bring your hands on guard. Left heel comes up and down. Strike a pose right there. Nice. Today. Thank you, Veronica. We're going to focus on the next movement pattern called repulse monkey. It's the only time let's head on over here. It's the only time that we step backwards with Tai Chi. So if you just step right up here, I'm going to take a half step behind you. We're going to go right back into this movements called strum the loot. Now, an opponent is coming towards us. Or if we're here for the healing, we're focusing on the energy. There's an energy that we want to repulse. Hands on guard, strum the loop. Your hand circles back. Follow your hand with your eyes. Step back with your left foot. And this time we're gonna go from the toes to the heel. As we push with our right hand and pull with our left. Continuing on, your left hand goes back. Slide your right foot back. Shift your weight. Right arm comes back as the left hand goes forward. Continuing on. Notice how her foot goes straight back. There's still space between her feet. And as the, as the hips turn, so does the shoulder. So again, you step back as I turn. Notice how my right shoulder follows my hip. Let's go one more time. Slowly from the ball of the foot to the heel. And just naturally, we'll pause here. Just naturally, there's this push and pull action without trying. This is where we get into the internal martial art aspect of Tai Chi Chuan. Very nice. And then it's also a way to just have a nice little smooth step like Veronica did. Let's demonstrate what the repulse monkey looks like. Ready? From position. We always show respect, self-control with each other. She punches hard, so I want to make sure I'm safe. Actually, let's switch sides. Veronica is in a punching position. I got into my repulse preparation. She steps forward. And notice the first thing I do, the punch comes, is I step back, I catch her hand, and I'm preparing for the repulse monkey. But why do we keep going back in a Tai Chi form? Maybe it's because I wasn't fast enough and she's still coming. So she punches, she punches, she punches, maybe one more punch. Nope, I got her. Okay, one more time. Come all the way over here. On guard, punch comes in, I step back one, I step back, and the key is I just stop. And if she keeps coming, you see what happens. Thank you very much. Let's line up one more time for repulse monkey on guard. Remember to have an open frame, be balanced, and we're going to find our flow. So this one time we do this, I want you just to imagine it doesn't have to be a person or an opponent, but something coming towards you like a stick from a falling tree that you grab and then you redirect the tree and you push it. Ready? Circle back. Step back with your left foot. Pull and push. We'll do this three more times. Step back, pull and push. Use your waist. Remember to breathe last time. And pause at the end. Very good. Let's take it to there. We're going to continue the Tai Chi form. And once we get to this, we're almost a quarter of the way through the entire Tai Chi 24. So you guys are doing great. Hang in there. And remember to trust the process. Anything new can be difficult at first. But once you learn it, you got it. Ready position. Shoulders down and relaxed. Starting, stepping out with your left into horse stance. Breathing in, lead with your wrists. Shoulders stay down. Breathe. Strengthen your connection to the ground. Shift weight, right? Open the toes out and shift weight left. Gather ball, bring it in and we breathe in when we come in. And then whenever we push, we breathe. Give, receive. Now remember, you do not have to step as far as I'm stepping. Sometimes you'll see Veronica modify her movements to show you there's many ways you can manifest this form while maintaining the integrity of the form and your body. Last time, let's stay together here. And you don't stop. You just continue to the transition. Sit back into the right leg. White crane spreads wings, open those wings and a little push. Look left and right. Never stop. Keep going. Brush me three times. Give and receive. Notice she has her hands on the left side of her body. Heel to toe. She's taking a smaller step right now. And I encourage you to do so as well, especially in the beginning. As you get more comfortable with these movement patterns, take bigger steps. And brush me half step forward. Remember, we never stop. Sit back. Hands are on guard. And we're going to go into repulse monkey circle back. Step back with your left. Good. Three more times. Keep the flow. We breathe in as we circle back and as we push again, last time, we're going to finish up by grabbing our ball. Gather all that energy. Bring it in for ball. Next move. Ready for it? Let's just let it happen. We're gonna go fast. Ward off and you just let it flow. This is one of my favorite moves. We're going to have to do it next episode, but I just want to give you a little, little teaser. But we have to be able to practice. So we're gonna repeat this one more time. A lot of the students ask me, how do I remember the form? And I encourage, I'm going to tell you what I tell them. Take the beginning of the form and do as many of the movements as you can that you remember with certainty. And then come back to this video and then add a couple more moves. So let's do it one more time. Centering. And I think this time we'll do the whole form. Okay? Tai Chi 24. Ready? And starting. Step out. So see how far you can remember the form. Maybe it's only to parting the horse's mane. Do that over and over until you no longer have to think about it. Gather your Tai Chi ball. Bring it in. And excuse me, part the mane. One of our goals in this series is to get you to be able to practice this form on your own without instruction. So stay tuned once we get you going through this whole form. The last time we do the form, our goal is that you simply follow along without us giving you the instruction. Half step forward. White crane spreads wings. Keep the flow going. We're going a little faster than usual. Partly because it's just easier to follow along at first. But we will be slowing it down. So I want you to be prepared for that. One more time. Brushing me open, expansive, half step forward. And strung the loo. It's like you have a string instrument and then you strum it. And we're going to repulse monkey now. We breathe in as we circle back and out as we push in. And gather your Tai Chi ball. Bring it in and ward off. It's like you have a shield. You're pushing everything away. Grasping the bird's tail. Square up and press clear. Full body push, receive turn towards the front. Shift your weight left and we'll repeat the same pattern. Ward off, roll back, press. Remember to stay on balance and keep your flow. Find your flow and then stay in it. This is all new material now. So do your best to follow and just have fun with it. This is single whip. Open to the left. Shift weight right. Wave hands, also known as wave hands like clouds. Breathe. This again is something we do in our warm up. Only now we're adding the stepping. Single whip, pressure wrist out. That's a strike. Open and palm. Half step forward. Had the horse on the head. Lift your left foot. We're going to keep the flow going here. Cross the arms up. That's a block and kick. Notice how Veronica modified her kick. It doesn't matter how high you kick. It's about staying within your own balance. Shift weight right, left heel kick. Snake creeps through the grass. Veronica is going to modify. Sit down. Left hand is the snake. Snake strikes. Snake receives. And golden rooster stands on one leg. Turn towards the front. Snake creeps through the grass again. Sit, sit, sit, snake creeps. Snake strikes. Receive. Again, golden rooster stands on one leg. Don't stop at the top. Keep going. Gather ball. J lady work shuttles. Notice the block and the strike. Receive. Gather your Tai Chi ball. And work the shuttles left. Half step forward. And final transition here for needle at bottom of C. Keep your back straight. Open up for fan back. Shift your weight, right? Turn towards the right. Shift weight left. Step out and block with a fist. Stepping forward with your left and punch. Clear your wrist and forearm. Stay with us here. Push, receive and turn towards the front. Right foot back. Come down as we close for a big cleansing breath in. Open up, feet together. If you're sweating, you're working. I'm working. So remember, Tai Chi Chuan is an exercise. You're doing great. Keep up the good work. Practice as far as you know up until that point, over and over, and then we'll join you next episode. Until then, Veronica and I would like to show you some etiquette and thank you for joining us.