Tai Chi classes are suitable for people of all ages and fitness levels. Tai Chi will increase your fitness, strength and flexibility at a pace that suits you.
Class begins with Standing Like a Tree qigong posture for 9 breaths.
Followed by Salutation to the Sun, White Crane Flaps its Wings and Mixing the Energies qigong exercises. These three and a fourth one that is rotated every week help to stetch the body, get your energy flowing and practise the breathing.
Next is footwork exercise where we do 4 sets of 9 with breathing. Footwork (otherwise known as stepping practise) combines tai chi stepping with set breathing into a qigong exercise. This exercise is critical in terms of improving balance in combination with strengthening your core.
The class does the whole form. The form has 66 posture and students who only know part of the form join in up to the point they know to then step out and observe the remainder of the form. This is a good way to introduce students to the flow in the form and they get preview of what they will be learning.
Then students who know the form do it a second time together.
During this time I teach any students who are still learning the form their next posture. The forms 66 postures are taught one at time. The secret is in the process of me teaching it individually to make sure the core of the movement has been understood and internalised by the student.
Finally to the class as a whole I review a posture each week. This is a curriculum where we work through all the forms postures over a 6-month period revising each in detail. This supports students once they have learnt the form in increasing their knowledge and understanding of the form's postures and putting that into practise.
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