Tai Chi Step by Step for Beginners Session 1

Tai Chi for health and well-being. Hello everyone, I'm Zexiong. In this Tai Chi training session, we are going to start from the very beginning, learn how to warming up and warming down properly, get used to the Tai Chi stances, and practice some Tai Chi walking as well. Before we start, just a friendly reminder, if you understand what Tai Chi is, and Tai Chi Quan, which is the Tai Chi forms we are going to practice, will become so much easier. I have a tutorial explaining it clearly, so if you haven't seen it yet, I will just put the link here and the link down below in the description. Let's start with our warming up exercise. So open your legs, cross your hands, let's gently twist with our wrists. One, two, three, four, you twist like this, four, five, all like this. See? Like a wave. All right? Six! All right, that's more than six. Just give a twist with your wrists. Our next one, let's give a twist with our ankles. One, two, three, four, five, six. The other side the same. You can twist a bit slower, it depends on you, okay? Make sure we warm up properly. And next, let's twist our wrists, like this, with your ankles at the same time. One, two, three, four, five, six. The other. And next, relax our shoulders. Relax our shoulders, okay? Three, four, five, six. Neck, let's twist our neck around. So like I mentioned before, you can twist a bit slower, okay? In this training session, I just do the general speed, okay? General speed. Our next one, let's twist our waist. Relax your waist. Most importantly, when you warm up, okay, or when you're doing Tai Chi, make sure you're trying to be as relaxed as possible. Next one, we're stretching with our shoulders. Okay, we raise our hands up and straighten our arms. Three, four, five, six. Okay, next, right arm to the left. Stretching with our shoulders. At the same time, we twist, okay? One, two, three. The other side. And next, put your hands on your back. Still twist our waist around. Next one is similar to twist with your waist, but we just raise up with your right arm to the left. Breathe in, out. In, out. And you look at your hands. Go around. Look at your hands. Relax. The other side. Stretch, inhale, out. Look at your hands. Good. All right, next, let's move on with our knees, okay? Put our legs together. Let's gently twist our knees, okay? You may hear cracking. That's totally normal, okay? Totally normal. Three, four, five, and six. And table toes. Crotch. Crotch to the degree you feel comfortable. If you can crotch all the way down, that's all good. If not, just a bit higher. All good, okay? Now, put the legs together and straight. One more time. Just to the degree you feel comfortable and relaxed, okay? So if I do a bit higher, like this. See? All good. Or even higher, like this. All good, okay? Now, next, we open our legs like a horse stance. So later on, we will learn some Taiji stances. So like a horse stance, put your hands above your knees, stretching with your shoulders. At the same time, you twist your waist. Stay like that. One more time. Make sure we warm up properly with the whole body. Next one is our hips. You just lift your leg up. And up and out. See? Three and four. Now, let's try to lift up one of our legs, okay? Higher and lower depends on you, okay? I don't mention this anymore. So remember, just to the degree that you feel comfortable. Higher and lower totally depends on you, okay? That's very important. And open your waist. Balance. And the other side. Try to be still. Be calm, okay? Look at the front. Focus at one spot. So this way, you can balance. If you, like, thinking too much, of course, you will lose your balance, okay? Be here. Be here, all right? One more time. Try to hold for three seconds first. And then you can try to hold a bit longer, okay? Now, next one is sideway. Sideway. All right. Next, let's get used to the Tai Chi stances. So now I'm going to share six fundamental stances to you. Start with bow stance. Please remember the name of the stances. So later on, when we are learning more, I just say the name of the stances, so you will understand. So first stance is called bow stance, like a bow and arrow. Gong Bu in Mandarin. Gong Bu. Bow stance. Gong Bu, all right? Left leg up front. Start with your left leg, all right? Bow stance. So this is bow stance. We'll do a bit lower. You can stand a bit higher, as long as you feel comfortable. The big leg rotate. Front leg, front knee cannot be over your toes. Otherwise, you will lose your balance. The weight not in the center. Make sure the weight is in the center. This is called Gong Bu, okay? Gong Bu. The other side, the same. Body naturally straight. Bow stance. Gong Bu. All right? Next, Ma Bu, horse stance. Let's do Ma Bu properly. Legs over your feet. One, two, three, and half. Your toes is not exactly point in front. Just a little bit to the side way. And put your hands like this. Cross, down. Ma Bu. Like I mentioned before, you can always stand a bit higher. So in here, I'll just do the standard one. So make sure it is flat. If you want to do the standard one, body naturally straight. Ma Bu. Like a horse riding in the center. Invisible horse here. Ma Bu. Next one, Xu Bu, which is empty stance. For example, with empty stance, if I'm going to crouch on my right leg, my right foot toes pointing out about 45 degree. Please remember this, okay? About 45 degree, I'm going to crouch on my right leg. Most of the weight on my right leg. The front leg just tip your toes. Almost empty. Last one, called empty stance. Xu Bu. Between two legs is one fist and one and a half distance. Cannot be too wide, okay? On your toes, like this. Sometimes turn a bit inwardly on your big toe. That's all good. All right, let's try with your left leg. Left leg will be toes pointing out about 45 degree. Crouch. See? Empty stance. Let's move on to the T stance. Ding Bu. T stance. I'm going to crouch on my right leg. So I tip with my left toes. And I crouch, see? Like this. You can stand a bit lower. All good. And the other side, the same. Higher. All good. Resting stance. Xu Bu. Start with your left leg. Put your left leg behind your right leg on your toes. Try to put weight between two legs, okay? Now I'm going to crouch down. See? Higher or go like this. Or lower. All good, okay? Make sure the weight in the center. Try not let your knee touch the ground. If you cannot crouch this low, higher. Start from higher first, all right? The other leg, the same. On your toes. Put the weight in the center. And crouch down. Higher. Lucky last is crouching stance. Crouching stance a bit challenge. Pu Bu. So I'm going to crouch on my right leg. I step out with my left leg. So higher, start with higher first. If you cannot crouch too low, it will be like this. All right? Once you get used to it, you can crouch down. Crouching stance. Put your foot, rotate. See? Now like this. All right? Rotate. Crouching stance. And the other side. Crouch on this leg. If you cannot swap like this, this is a challenge, okay? You can always start with crouching down first, like this. And step out. Take your toes first. Once you get used to it, put your heel down. So this takes time, okay? Takes time. And then you're crouching down. And step out. And put your heel down. All right? This takes time. All right? Be patient. And finish. So that's the six fundamental stances. Please get used to those stances and also with the names as well. Next one, let's move on to the Tai Chi hands. When you're practicing Tai Chi, how should your hands be? Let's do it together. Put your hands on your head and relax. Take off your hands. See? Relax your hands. Don't be like this, using too much strength. Just relax your hands. So this way, your movement will become flow. All right. Let's try some Tai Chi walking. So I face to this direction first. You're going to open with your left leg. And hands up. And relax. All right? So this is the commencing move. Let's practice together. So I open with my left leg. Hands up. Breathe in. Breathe out. Crouch a bit. OK? Remember, if you crouch this low, make sure you maintain this level. There's no up and down. And then put your hands on your head. Start with your left leg first. Step out. Land on your heel. And shift your weight from the back to the front leg. All right? No up and down, which means there's no pump. And up and down. Try to maintain the same level. OK? And flow. See? This is for overall training. Balance. Because I'm standing on one leg. See, this is balance, strength, coordination, and overall training. OK? So now let's try again from the beginning. Left leg out. Breathe in. Out. Start with your left leg out first. Land on your heel. Flow through like water. OK? We do six times. If at the beginning, if you do like this, that's all good. And practice makes better. OK? And finish. Breathe in. Out. And bring your left leg back together. Now let's try one more time. Land on your heel first. And shift your weight. You can practice more if you like. But in here, we just try six times. So that's Tai Chi walking forwardly. Let's try with backwardly. With backwardly, I face to this angle first. Start. Start with your left leg back first. Before, if you practice, if you do Tai Chi walking forwardly, you stand on your heel first. But this time, if you're walking backwardly, opposite, around. Land on your toes first. Change your foot, the angle, about 45 degree, like an empty stance. Remember? And then, see? Change the angle. All right? Now let's do it together. One more time. Get used to coordination. Coordinate. Improve your coordination. We don't do too much in this training session. We just gradually get used to it. And if next day, our legs are a bit sore, that's totally normal. Just give a gentle massage, all right? Next, let's learn how to warming down properly. Start with our legs first. Massage your legs, the muscles. All right? Massage. And above our knees, by the side, give a gentle massage. Your thighs. Like I mentioned before, you can do more if you like, okay? We just go through how to warming down properly. And your hips, by the side. And your back as well. Give a massage with your back and your kidneys. Shoulders. You can rub your shoulders as well, okay? Arms. Down here. The other side. Rub your shoulders and arms. Use your thumbs to massage behind your head. Your leg as well. All right, our pain pose. Like it lies on our head. On our head, there's too many pressure points, okay? Just give a gentle massage. And relax. Take a deep breath in. Push up. Oh. Or you can cross your hands. Breathe in. Oh. One more time. Oh. Breathe out. Breathe in. Oh. And give a good shake, okay? Shake. Relax. You can shake your legs as well. All right, everyone. Please try to memorize everything in this training session. For example, always make sure you warm up properly before you practice the next training session. After you've done your practice, and always make sure you're warming down properly to avoid injuries. I hope you enjoyed this training session. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more training or support us on Patreon. Happy training, happy life. We'll see you next time.