Tai Chi for Beginners 03 - "Opening & Expanding your Frame"

Hello and welcome to Tai Chi class. I'm Dr. Daniel Hoover and assisting me is Veronica Hoover. We start with a traditional greeting. Let's get started. We want to start with a nice comfortable warm-up, feet about shoulder width apart, and we're going to begin in a horse dance. Waist opening. We'll go to our right, left, and allow your arms to move freely. Make sure you have enough room with the person next to you because I know that you're practicing with people with you. So you don't bump hands like that. And just relax, allow your arms, remember to gently stimulate and tap your kidneys. Remember, that's where our essence is stored. Go a little farther each time. It should feel good. It's like, ah, it's a good dynamic ballistic stretch. We're going to keep today's warm-up little more brief because I know you're already warmed up and you've been practicing at home. All right, that's good. Let's bring our feet together. And then warming up the knees, support the hands on the side of the knees and then small circles. Gradually work up to a range of motion that's comfortable for you and challenges you without pain. Other direction, we have a pressure point in the back of our knee. We're going to use today. Take your middle finger and press firmly in the middle most point in the back of your knee. So there's a crease in your knee right here in the middle. Press firmly for about 10 seconds. This is a great local point in acupuncture for the knees, but also a master point that helps the low back because it travels up to the low back. All right. Next, back into our horse stance. Grounding, feel your connection with the earth and we're going to do a gentle balance exercise that's going to loosen up our ankles. Shift your weight to your left leg, right leg and hand come up as the left hand comes down. Okay? It doesn't matter how high your foot is. All right, shoulders, relax, make sure you're nice and tall. Now we're going to loosen up our ankle. Rotate a few times in both directions. If you're at home and you need some assistance, you can get a chair or a table in front of you and hold on like that. But you only want to hold on a little bit. Slowly bring your leg down and transfer your weight to the other side. Now this movement pattern is called golden rooster stands on one leg. And we'll be demonstrating this in a few more episodes. Shoulders down and relaxed. Feel your connection with the earth. Good. And again, if you need something to hold on to, that's okay, but don't just rely on that. Just use it as you need to. If you have a wall, only touch it as you need to. Stay off of it and then touch it. Okay? Loosen up the ankle now. Both directions. Very good. And slowly bring it down. All right. Nice. Hands on your hips. Line your stance. We're going to do a modified dragon drinks from the river. It's a Qigong movement out of the eight brocades Qigong series. Shift your weight to your right leg. Straightening your left. Bring your bottom back in one big full circle. Stretch. Switch your weight to the other side. Push your hips forward, stretching those front, the front of your hips and the back around again. One more time. Keep in mind, we would normally want to do these stretches, these movements longer. Some of the Qigong movements will do about 10 times in a row, other direction. But for the sake of time, and so we can teach you the maximum amount of Tai Chi in our 30 minute show, we're going to keep the exercises short and get right into the meat of the material. One more time. Really got to feel that stretch. It should hurt good. That hurt good feeling, right? Good. One more thing. We're gonna get back into the horse stance. Loosen up the shoulders and the neck a little bit. Interlock your fingers behind your back. Roll those shoulders back and down as you feel the chest open up. Now we'll do a few head circles going to our left and then to our right. We'll go down that way. Nice and easy. Feel the stretch in your neck while the chest is open and just relax. Remember many of the teachings, Tai Chi teaches us to slow down, relax, other direction. Enjoy, be present. Remember to breathe. One more time. If you hear popping your neck, that's okay. If it keeps going and or if there's pain, go see your chiropractor. Horse stance. All right. Time to get into the Tai Chi movements. What I think we're going to do now is actually jump right into the Tai Chi form. Can we get into our starting position? Since I know you've all been practicing and you want to put it to the test, we're going to take the Tai Chi form up until what we learned last time and pick up from there. So feet together facing forward. Starting position. This is called Wu Chi. It's a standing meditation. It means empty mind. Center your mind, body, spirit. Feel your connection to the earth. Starting. Step out with your left into horse stance. Center. Breathing in. Leave with the wrist, the shoulder level, and then out slowly, slowly lower your body. As you lower your hands, shift your weight, right? Open your left toes out. Now we're going to fully express these movements. You may want to take smaller steps or modify as you need to. And that's totally fine. Heel to toe. Parting wild horses main three times. We want to focus today on our posture and opening and expanding our frame, wide open frame without collapsing. Receive ball. Parting the horses main again, heel to toe. Notice we're expanding. Half step forward for our first transition. White crane spreads wings. Use your imagination here. Your crane opening your wings. Crane looks left. Right hand comes down blocking. Turn right. Brush me three times. Heel to toe. Notice how the left hand is blocking low and the right hand pushes. Receive. I'm going to observe Veronica. Notice your hands come on the left side of her body. Preparing to block and go across the right side of her body. Receive one more time and then we'll transition. Heel to toe. Transition step, half step forward. Sit back into that right foot. Hands on guard as we strum the loop. Circle back. Step back with your left foot. Pivot on the front foot. This is called repulse monkey. Step back. Notice how we're pivoting on the ball of our front foot. Remember to breathe in, step back, breathe out. Gather ball and then we're going to hold that ball and pause. Veronica, if you could stay there for a moment. Now we're going to learn the next movement and it's a pattern of ward off and then roll back, press and push. You don't have to remember that because you can rewind if you're on YouTube. Anyway, here we go. Step out. Heel to toe. Ward off means your left arm is going to be like a shield and your shift your weight. And then you're going to have the shield here and you're just going to push everything away. Now we just gave one. So now we're going to follow through and then receive one. This is rolling back and then press. Bring your right hand to your left wrist. Shift your weight forward and press. Notice we have an open expansive frame. We're not collapsed. Expand. We're using biomechanical advantage here. We're going to clear out and down as we come back onto our heel. And then push. Got it? Hold it here for a moment. I heard someone say yes. So since you got it, we're going to do it. The other side. Receive, turn, turn, turn, turn. Shift your weight left. Gather your Tai Chi ball again. Ward off. Heel to toe. Pushing everything away. All your chi is going here, pushing everything out. Hold for a second. Veronica, you don't want to overdo it. You see how I weaken my frame if I go too far. If I go too little, I'm collapsed. So it's kind of like Goldilocks and the three bears. You want it just right to find the maximum open frame without compromising yourself. Roll back, also known as grasping the bird's tail. Can you see the tip, the bird's tail? Just pull the tail feathers and press not collapsed. Open. Hold for just a moment. Notice there's an open angle here and an open angle here. A common error when we're learning is we have these 90 degree angles. You see this 90 degree angle? We've been talking about Tai Chi. We want the chi and the circulation to flow. Here is a kink in the hose. Open up the hose, allow the circulation to flow. So go ahead and make that correction now if you haven't. Take it from here to here. Continuing on, clear as we clear back and push. Very good. So what does this all mean? Would you like to help me demonstrate? We're going to bow as usual, showing self-restraint, self-control, and respect. Punching position, please. So Veronica is going to punch in. Go ahead, punch in. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to kind of clear, get out of the way, but there's a lot of different things we can do. I want to show you ward off. So once I get out of the way here, I'm going to contact here and I'm going to expand my weight forward. I'm just going to push. That's ward off. It's an expanding energy. Now let's say she just kind of pushes that off. She's like, that's all you've got. And she comes in for another one. So I'm going to receive that one here grasping the bird's tail. And without using force, I'm not going to pull like this. I'm just going to sit back and turn my waist and it's that simple. Next is the roll back and press. So punch in again, please. Punch comes in, I'm going to clear. Now as she goes by, rather than just having her go by, I've got an opportunity to stop this right now. She starts to go by and then boom, I catch her right here. Now notice this is a pressing energy. Boom, that's the energy. Last time, punch comes in. I can let her come by or I can create a structure here. And right there, there it is. Oh, okay. And one, two, three, and then push. I think it's only fair we let her push me back, right? So I'm just going to step towards you. Again, you're pushing position. Remember the push is like this. She's going to contact me up here. And if she's not collapsed and her arms are open, she should be able to support my weight. So I'm coming in, she contacts me. And then very easy, right? Nice job. Next movement pattern is single whip. So we finished with a push here. Ready? Going back into that push. Shift your weight to your left leg. Turn towards the front. Now imagine your hands are floating in water and there's floating side to side. Your shoulders are going back and forth. Pause. Now we're going to bring our left foot in as we push our right wrist out. Step out to the left. Clearing and palm. Let's do that again from the push. We finished that push. Receive single whip. Your arms are floating forward and back. Left foot comes in as you push the wrist out. Open left palm and settle into that posture. Feel your connection with the earth. So what does this mean? Let's have you turn on this side. There are a few interpretations to this movement pattern. I'll show you a couple right now. First, I want everyone to take your wrist, bend it all the way, and then hit your own hand like that. You see how hard this is? It's actually a striking surface. So Veronica is slowly going to start pushing my shoulders. To be etiquette. I just want to make sure she doesn't hit me. She's got strong. All right, so she's pushing. So what I want to do is just, just be soft like this. And so when she pushes me, she created that. And it's just a hit to the chin. The other, the other interpretation, left leg forward, please. Veronica is going to step in and punch. I'm going to wrap the branch, you see, so it's that same posture. I'm going to step out and push. Okay, thank you. Let's take it from the last ward off rollback and all that. So here we go. Finishing the first one. Receive, turn to the other side, shift your weight left, gather your ball, open to the right, ward off, receive as we roll back, also known as grasping the birds tail. Press. Remember, that's a powerful hit here. Clear. Obviously you're blocking. And then push, receive, single whip, turn towards the front. Right shoulder comes back. This time I'm going to wrap the branch, little style points right there. And then open, pump. Before we move on to the last movement pattern we're going to demonstrate in this episode, I want to show you a few common errors that happen in the beginning. And it starts with push. Can we push that direction? So I want you to imagine there's a car in front of you. My car broke down. I need you to help me push it. So get your hands on the hood of the car. We'll line up here. Hands on the hood of the car. All right. I'll come to you. Thank you. My hands are a little longer. And feel your connection with the earth. Get ready to push it, get in your best posture. Do you feel the power, that starting power you have to push? Good. Now what I want you to do is keep going forward, forward, forward and let that heel come up. Now, do you have more or less power when your heel comes up? That's right. Less. Okay. So very commonly when we do this, receive and push our back heel comes up. Make sure you stay rooted. The only time we lift that back heel is to travel. Okay. The other thing I'd like to highlight. Let's go back to your original position, please. And single with final push to the right. Rockers doing a great job following, isn't she? And Tai Chi is all about flow. You're letting go being in the present moment so we can follow. So what we need to do to get into single whip is receive bring those toes up in your right foot. See how they're up. Turn towards the front and see how your toes follow. Let's go back. Toes go back. And then they're following our hip. Okay. Last movement pattern for today is cloud hands. We did this in the first couple of episodes during the warm-up. Horse stance. Shift your way left. Right hand comes up. Turn to the right. Shift weight left. Switch your hands. Left hand on top as you turn towards the left. When you do this, you want to focus on one fluid movement, just like all the movements. But especially here. This is a great time to practice that. Now that we've got the top hand moving, don't forget the right hand. You ever saw the movie, The Karate Kid? This is very similar to wax on, wax off, high block, low block, high block, high block, low block. All right, let's pause for a moment. And you notice how you just relax with me. We're going to demonstrate the wrist grab. So you notice when our hand comes across here, both of us are kind of opening our hand at the end. What does that subtle opening at the end mean? What's happening is take your wrist out in front of you. And you're going to follow along on that wrist and turn. And look what happens. It turns right into a nice little grab, right? So a lot of times in a martial situation, maybe you can't see someone through some sand in your face or you're sweating in your eyes, kind of like what's starting for me. But so Veronica puts her hand in front of me. All I can, I can't really see her, but I can feel her. I'm just going to turn my hand and I just catch it, just catch it. Okay? So a couple of times, everyone just go and feel that. Close your eyes. See if you can catch your wrist without looking. Good. Back into wave hands. Shift weight left. Turn to the right. And that subtle opening at the end is that wrist grab. One more time. Other side. All right. Veronica, you throw a couple of punches towards me. There are a few other options here. So she's just going to, in a horse stance, throw some punches high and low, nice and slow. I contact. I don't have to catch her, her hand here. I just catch her forearm, turn and catch. Another punch. Now maybe she throws a low punch. Here it is. There's the block. We call this a tiger's mouth. It can be used for striking and it can be used for blocking. So the punch comes in. I just contact here. Doesn't matter if it's her right arm. Contact here. So this is the wave hands pattern. Thank you for not hitting me. Let's take it from the top all the way through with the wave hands. Keep in mind in the wave hands pattern, we're going to be doing some stepping. Ready? Starting position. We're going to do the 24 form up and through wave hands. Do your best to follow. If you get lost, make up your own Tai Chi move until you get back. And if our hand is here and your hands here, that's fine. We'll get into the details later. Have fun. Ready? And starting. Step out left. Breathing in, grounding yourself. Lower your body a little bit. Shift weight, right? Notice your toes come up. Shift weight left. Gather your Tai Chi ball. Keep that ball and that frame open. Parting the wild horses mane. Now this looks very similar to ward off, but it is a bit different. I want you to watch my hands on this next one. Parting the horses mane has an energy of splitting. One hand comes down and up and you're splitting like this. Little different. Receive. Watch episode one to review the martial application of parting the horses mane. Last one, half step forward. White crane spreads wings. Looking left, looking right. Now these transitions we haven't talked about. We're going to save them for the end. After you get all the main movements, we will talk about these transition steps. Continuing on brush me. Imagine you're blocking something low, pushing right at the center line. Again, preparing for brush me. She blocks and I go. Strum the loot. Hands are on guard. And then we strum the loop. Circle back for repulse monkey. We do it four times. That's one slide that foot straight back and two. And as we circle back out, as we push in, stay with me and you at home, I'll start an email shift weight left. Gather your Tai Chi ball. Hold it for just a moment and feel that energy. Remember the first couple episodes we focus on that energy. Feel that springiness here. Just like we do on our feet. Continuing on with ward off. Now you're pushing everything away. We're not splitting. You're pushing away. Stay with me a little bit. And receive. Veronica is doing a great job. Staying with me is a little tough because normally we just keep going. I know I'm stopping a little bit because it's a lot. It's educational. But we're going to get our flow in the next couple episodes. Receive, turn, turn, turn that foot is turning. Shift your weight left. Okay, now she gets to beat up on me. Ward off. I go back. Okay, she pulls. I'm not punching this time. And then press. Oh, just like that. Clear. She's blocking. And final push. Keep it going. Single whip. Remember, this can be a strike or a grab, a wrist grab. Open and palm. Half step forward. Okay, I got this. Finish the single whip and right into wave hands. Shift your weight, right. And a little slower. Wave hands left, right foot in. Stay with me a little bit. Wave hands, right. Good. Step. Use your waist to turn. Good. Notice the open frame. Your head is straight up and down. Spine straight up and down. No leaning. Step out. Left. Good. Right foot in. Single whip. One more time. You've already got this move down. Left shoulder back. Right shoulder back. Push that wrist out. Keep the motion going. Don't stop. Don't stop. And palm. Very good. What I'd like to do now is end with a few movements that they can do, that you can do at home in case you don't remember all these moves yet. So Tai Chi in a box. Let's step up right here. Into our horse stance. Now, the tension's rising. You're at work, you're at home. You just need to step out and get all the energy off, right? So one way is a nice reset. And the reset is doing the opening move, Wu Chi, to the opening three to five times in a row. Nice and easy. Okay? So horse stance. Feel the earth beneath your feet. Shoulders down and relax. Elongate your spine. Imagine a string gently pulling each vertebrae up a little bit. Regulate your breath. And we want to connect the breath with the movement. Ready? Breathing in as we slowly bring our wrists up. And out as we bring them down. Few more times. And out. As you get to the top. Let's leave it there. Bring your feet back underneath your hips. There's plenty of opportunity to practice. I recommend doing the first few moves that you know over and over until it becomes muscle memory. Enjoy. Make it a game. I've shared before, this is, this is more difficult than it looks at first. But that's no reason not to continue on. I highly encourage you to trust the process. After the first several times of doing this, things are going to start clicking if they haven't already. You have these little breakthroughs where you're like, whoa, what was that? That's the reason we practice Tai Chi. So thank you very much from Veronica and I. We're going to show our etiquette and bow to you and each other. And we'll see you next time.