Tai Chi for Beginners 07 - "Deepening Your Practice"

Hello and welcome to Tai Chi class. I'm Dr. Daniel Hoover and assisting me is Veronica Hoover. We'll begin with a traditional greeting. Let's start with our warm-up, horse stance, nice and comfortable. Feel your connection to the earth and open the waist. Here we go. Waist opening, gently tapping the kidneys. Relax. Remembering to breathe slow and steady. Let's go ahead and bring our feet together now. Warm the knees. Support the knees here. Circles. As usual, we want to take care of our knees and they will take care of you. So Veronica, you can go full range today, whatever is comfortable for you. You've been so generous modifying this whole series. Other direction. You might notice some of the popping and creaking you had at the beginning of this series is less. Come on up for stance. Opening the waist, hands on your hips. Dragon drinks from the river. Shift your weight to your left. Straightening that right leg. Bring the hips back full circle. Go to your end range of motion or just off your end range of motion. Push the pelvis forward. Continuing on one more time after this. Push the hips forward and around. Other direction. Don't rush it. This is a really nice stretch. If you go too fast, it might aggravate, irritate, bring more inflammation into that joint that you don't want. Last time, all the way around. Hips forward. We want to interlock our fingers behind ourselves. Roll those shoulders back. Really open up the chest. You really want to bring those shoulder blades together. So if the shoulder blades were here, bring them in like this. Chest open, chin level. Begin opening the neck muscles, opening the pathways from the torso to the head. There we go. Slowly releasing whatever is with you so you can be fully present to today's class. We'll begin going the other direction. Last time, keep those shoulders open. Let's get into our horse dance. Well, the first episodes that you've seen thus far have been about the content, the movements, what do they mean? Today will be about the context. How do we bring that into our lives for health and wellness? Let's form our Tai Chi ball. Shoulders down and relaxed. Remember, we've worked on this ball before. There's a biological energetic circuit moving between our palms. Between here and here, imagine there's a beam of light or energy flow. For the Star Wars fans, you can think about the force. Bring your awareness to that force between your palms that we also call Chi. We're going to do a few breaths. Breathe in as you expand the ball. Breathe out as you compress it. Stay together. We're going to take a few moments now and palpate our own energy ball or Tai Chi ball. So just move your hands back and forth together slowly. Now you'll notice the size of the balls vary, doesn't matter. Do what works for you. Sometimes you might want to try to feel it with this big ball out here, but it might be hard to feel. So what I recommend as you're getting used to perceiving and feeling, sensing this energy, start with a smaller ball here until you feel something. Something subtle or not so subtle. As you start to get a feel for it, you can move out a little bit more. I like to sometimes go out and see how far I can feel. Like where's the boundary of where I'm aware of that sensation. Now let's bring back the ball to an, to a range that we can definitely feel it. One way to really optimize that feeling is to slowly go out and in. A lot of times we go like this, try to feel it, right? Softly, keeping your fingers apart. As soon as you touch your fingers, you're aware of your physical body. This goes beyond the physical body. Subtle energy. So keep them apart. Avoid brushing up against your skin so you can maximize it. Let's center our ball. We're going to shift our way to the left. Turn to the left. Just like in wave hands. Only this time we're focusing on the ball. Shift weight right, turn to the right. Notice we're not moving our arms. It's our bodies that are moving. Be mindful of your posture. Spine is straight up and down. We're not leaning with it. Straight up and down. Shift the weight, turn and move the ball. I'm showing this to you for a couple of reasons. One, we want to get back to the basics and fundamentals. Two, a lot of you most likely came to Tai Chi or were recommended Tai Chi by a friend or a doctor for health. Let's slow it down just a little bit here. And why do we have disharmony and dis-ease in our body? One of the reasons are we're more stressed than we've ever been. Even if you consider yourself a relaxed learner, if they're not in the room right now, there's an opportunity to yell to the other room and ask someone to come here now. All right, Veronica and I are going to etiquette towards each other. Each other. As soon as I touch myself or she touches me, I become aware of that area. How do I know that feeling I was feeling is actually a thing? How do I know my Chi unless I know it relative to someone else's? That's the point of this exercise. Get your ball ready. You're going to decide who is going to go first, who's going to go second. I'll go first, Veronica's going to be the vessel and just hold her ball and her energy. And I'm going to feel her energy relative to mine. So what we're going to do, you're there, bring your ball a little bit closer together, nice. Notice she does not have 90 degree angles. So you want everything down, not up like this. Do you remember the kink in the hose? No kink in the hose. So with her permission, I'm going to move my energy ball around yours. So first I might just bring my ball in and see if I can feel her field of energy. I may go out like this. And this is for her just as much as it is for me. So I want her to be able to feel something as well. If you're not quite feeling it yet with the other person, here's what I found. You're spreading out a little bit. Just let's keep it a little bit tight here. She's really sensitive. So she tends to go out. I want something that you guys will be able to work with at first today. I'm going to get my Tai Chi ball and bring it around here. I'm going to compress and expand. And I'm feeling that difference between this palm and then I'm feeling it between this palm. And when you do this at home, you're going to feel a subtle change. It's quite amazing. Some of the things I've heard people say are heat. We'll go ahead and trade now. And you can go ahead and move around my Tai Chi ball. But heat, we can explain through thermodynamics, right? We all have heat radiating out of our bodies. But here are some of the other things we've heard people describe and you may be already experiencing at home. A pressure, a pulling, a tingling. Now, how do we describe that if, how do we describe that through physics? And the pressure tends to increase as something goes closer and then there's a pulling as it goes away. So I invite you to play with that at home. Thank you for all that. I've studied with many different teachers over the years and a lot of the Qi Gong and Tai Chi masters will say it takes months or years to learn to feel the Tai Chi. But I felt if I can learn to feel the Tai Chi, so can anyone else. And that's why I've developed this exercise because it is a real phenomenon. That's why acupuncture is a viable, vibrant form of healing today. In fact, it's covered by most insurances. Not because, well, does it work or not? It absolutely does work. People, the insurance companies are saving money by providing acupuncture. So I want you to truly understand and get and feel and experience where you get to understand this Qi and this life force that brings us health and vitality. All right, let's transition to the second part of our program today. That's for the wellness, that's for the sensation, that's for the calm and peace. Next, the martial part. I know a lot of you guys have been waiting. Are you done with the martial arts? Not yet. How do we practice with another person? It's called push hands. Let's go right foot forward, right foot forward. So again, get that partner to come back in the room. We're not done yet. Tai Chi is about listening. How do I know that my frame, my posture are congruent and going to be effective? So that's why we need a partner. This is really where the rubber meets the road with Tai Chi Chuan. What we're gonna start with, you're gonna have one partner lead, the other person is gonna stay. So I'm gonna lead and Veronica, wherever my hand goes, I want you to stay connected to it, okay? This is the first stage. So I'll go towards her, I'll go away. Notice she's following me. Now, some of you, when the person moves, you might get separated. So if I move away, you see, oop, she wasn't listening. So what does this do? Not only do we get to feel and be connected with another human being, it also helps us stay in present time consciousness. She's following me. She's not anticipating where I'm going. She's not judging where I'm going. She's just empty, present. Doesn't matter where I go, she closed her eyes. Try closing your eyes and do this with a partner. And then we'll switch. So now I'm going to follow Veronica wherever she goes. So you see, I'm looking at you, not at her, but there's a connection here. This push hands practice goes very, very deep. There's so many places we can go with it. I'd like to leave you with something more than the, where you can continue your Tai Chi practice as much as you like. Oftentimes we'll get a little anxious. She's going too slow and I want to start to push. Not right now. This practice is only about listening, staying stuck. All right, now that you've got that, good job. You're picking up quickly. We're going to go in a circle here. Now you notice Veronica's going back and forth. I'm not doing that too much just because I haven't told you guys, but she's been practicing for a while. We will be going back and forth in a moment. You can keep it up Veronica, that's great. We're going to go on a horizontal plane. This is where we start to learn a lot about ourselves. Here's how it works. When she goes towards me, she's leading. No matter what she does, I have to listen and follow. Now, she's going to try to push me back. Go ahead and push me back. And I win. She's got the advantage. So what I have to do is, we're going to go very slowly. She's slowly coming towards me. I'm not going to try to resist her. She's going to come towards me, and it's going to hit my body. She's going to keep putting pressure, and all I'm going to do is just let it go by. Now, if she keeps going, all I have to do is do a little pull like this. Here's the game. Number one, listen, stay connected, present time consciousness. Two, whoever lifts their foot up loses. So it's a game to see who's grounded and balanced. So what we're going to start doing is, and I'm going to try to push her off balance. Let's say I push you off. I won, okay? But I don't want to push her that hard. Okay, so here we go. Now, when I'm pushing towards her, if she resists me, it's easier to push her back. But if she just lets go and follows the energy, and I don't go past where I should not go, she can't pull me. Now it's her turn to push. We're going to find a flow here. She pushes, I must receive. I'm going to redirect the energy. She has to wait, it's my turn. This is tough for a lot of us. How present can we be? I'm going to start pushing. Now, here's something you're going to find. We all tend to keep going in the same direction. Go ahead and keep going with me. We keep going this way, but let's say this time I'm going, I'm going, but then I change direction. She wasn't ready for it and she's resisting me. So what I'm going to do as a nice partner, I'm just going to say, and then it's a reminder, oh, follow. She had an idea of where I was going. We're going to play just a little bit and I want you to observe and I'm going to explain to you what's going on. So complete your push. She pushed, but she stopped. Push towards me, I'm going to let it go. It's my turn. I'm more yin, I've got potential energy to become yang. Yin, yang, and I've got more power. But here's the thing, if I go past being yang, if I go too much yang, I become yin. This is a very, very deep practice where we get to learn a lot. Second, next stage, come on forward like this. We're going to talk about biomechanical advantage. Okay, let's go ahead and take a half step back, sorry. Remember, no 90 degree angles. Here's where it begins to work. She's very powerful here, believe it or not. If she's got an open angle here, Veronica, I want you to support my weight. I'm leaning in, she's able to support my weight. In order to push me back, all she has to do is move her waist to the right. Just like that. Did you see it? Let's switch legs. This time, we're going to create a 90 degree angle or less. I'm going to push, leaning with my weight, and push me back. She has to use muscle, it's very difficult. Let's open this angle out. Keep this frame. Do you remember this from the tai chi form? Ward off. Remember, it's a shield, and you're pushing everything away. Don't collapse your shield. Keep it open. Shield up, out. As I push, I want you to see how my pressure goes into that back foot. See how it goes into her back foot? That's the frame we're looking for. So now that she's supporting me, she's going to turn her waist slowly to the left, and that's how it works. Very good. Just for a little bit of fun, a little bit of freestyle, we're going to show you the next stage in tai chi push hands. I don't know what she's going to do, she doesn't know what I'm going to do, but it's a friendly game. Remember, if you become too aggressive, you don't have anyone to play with. We're going to transition from single hand push hand to two hand push hands, just for a minute or two so you can see how this interplay of becoming yin and yang. Now, technically I'm more yang, she's more yin, being female and male. But in order for me to develop and essentially to win at this game, I have to be soft. In the tai chi classics, there's books you can look up, the tai chi classics, they say the one who's softest wins. Keep your hand out here. If I'm a big bully coming at her, it doesn't matter how strong I am, if she's softer than me, she can use my energy. The one who is softest wins, and it takes listening, not judging, not anticipating. Here we go. Nice and easy, just pushing. So Veronica, you have my permission to push me back, if you know, just go for it whenever you want. So there's a little bit of skin in the game. So now we're doing two hand push hands. We're looking for each other's center of gravity. You see what happened? We both pushed at the same time. So go ahead and keep pushing. Whoever's softest, soft. Centering, nice and slow. Go ahead and give me a push when you're ready. Give me a push, there we go. Couple more times. Put something behind it, there it is. Thank you, Veronica. Well done. We've enjoyed going through this tai chi practice with you. What I'd like to do is run through the form one last time and leave you with an idea and a way to continue your tai chi practice. Tai chi 24, this last time we do it, there won't be any talking. This is the more traditional way things were done. You just get into a tai chi class and you follow. And I think at this point, you're all ready to follow. If you find yourself lost at some point, don't worry about it. What I recommend to all my students is make up your own tai chi move. So let's all push this way. Like we're just gonna push this way. And what we're gonna do, Veronica, we're gonna have to end up this way. We're in tai chi class and we see everyone's already over there. We don't wanna go, huh, and try to catch up. What I encourage you to do is just slowly make up your own tai chi move, whatever you wanna do, and catch up. Have fun. A little game of follow the leader. Shall we? Feet together. This last time we do the tai chi form together is for you. I want you to think about your intention, what brought you to this class. Balance, health, fun, something to do, boredom, get out of the house, whatever it is. But take this time, focus on that. Don't worry too much about what she and I are doing. Find your flow and enjoy. At the very end, we're gonna come back together. We're gonna stand tall and feel the goodness inside and how the chi is free flowing, starting. Worry about what sight and vision to stay in sync with each other. Just gazing out of the corner of your eyes to say, stay in sync. Soften your gaze, waiting hand, keeping it slow and steady. You can kick as high as you like. Staying together, smooth and steady. Modify as you need to. Never stopping, nice and slow. Needle at bottom of C, slow, open. We thank you for joining us during this Tai Chi series. Even though this is the end of this series, it's actually a beginning. I encourage you, wherever you've been viewing this in the world, to do a local search for a Tai Chi class, a meetup Tai Chi class, and continue what you've been doing. If you're in the Southern California region, feel free to look us up. Thank you, and enjoy your Tai Chi journey.