Walk, Tone & TAI CHI - 15 mins - gentle workout - seniors / beginners

Welcome to this next session in our walk tone and Tai Chi series. These are a perfect entry point if you're returning to fitness or a beginner of Tai Chi. They blend gentle, mindful walking, light toning movements and Tai Chi for strength, balance and mindfulness. They're gentle and effective, designed for seniors and beginners. Always focus on posture, ground your feet, lift up through the crown, keep everything relaxed and remember we are pulling belly button through to spine to engage that core area. Placing our feet in parallel, hip width apart, let's start with our warm-up, shoulder rolls. Changing direction, balancing the chi, we're breathing in as we float the hands to shoulder height, breathing out as we bring them down and add a little knee bend, keeping the posture tall. Lift the arms high with a gentle stretch through the body, inhaling as we go, exhale, bring the hands down. Let's change direction, gather the chi, breathing in and breathing out. Okay, let's get going with our walking on the spot, keeping in a natural rhythm and that posture as good as you can, don't worry if you don't keep in time with me. We want to really focus the mind on our body, on every part of the movement, making this as mindful as possible. Let's have those shoulder rolls, changing direction, adding our balancing the chi, breathing in and breathing out. Lifting the arms high, gentle stretch through the body and then opening out towards the sides and down, bringing the arms up the other way, gathering the chi, breathing in as the arms rise, breathing out as the hands lower. For our first section, we are focusing on our cloud hands, so taking our feet slightly wider than hip width, let's just focus on the arm movement. One hand's on the table, other hand coming up to hold the mirror, we're turning the waist from one corner to the other, this carries the arm across. We do our wave, we swap the hands and we carry them across the other way. I'd really like you to focus on that top hand, imagine that we are waving those hands through the clouds, we're really trying to push those clouds away, developing that mindfulness of movement. Adding a transfer of weight to our side bow stance and just for now, we're going to bring ourselves up to standing with straight legs in the middle, keeping the knees soft and then sink down into our side bow on the other side. Adding a progression, we are transferring the weight through our horse stance over to the other side, keeping the knee bend low. Next, let's add our footwork, stepping in as we wave and then stepping out as we wave and then just taking it across the side bow and then we can repeat those steps in the opposite direction. Let's continue with our second set of mindful walking, again focusing on your posture and every part of the movement. Let's have those shoulder rolls, changing direction, balancing the chi, lifting the arms up high and changing to gathering the chi. For our second Tai Chi section, we're going to stick with our cloud hands and I really want you to focus on trying to connect mind to body. So think about the turn of the waist, the movement of the arms, focus on that top hand, watching it wave, feel that flow like we are pushing through the clouds, add that natural resistance to the movement and really start to layer that practice and deepen that Tai Chi feeling. Adding our side bow, transferring through horse stance, staying low and finally adding our footwork, gathering the chi, breathing in as the arms rise, breathing out slowly as the hands lower. We're taking a moment just to calm everything down now, really relax, feel peaceful and feel the flow. Balancing the chi, focusing on the breath, inhale and exhale. Stepping feet together, bringing the hands around, hands to heart. Thanks very much for joining me again for this walk tone and Tai Chi session. Do remember to check out the rest of the channel and subscribe if you enjoy. See you soon, bye!