Tai Chi for Absolute Beginners! (Part 1)

Julia Williams

A step by step guide to get you started learning Tai Chi. Improve your balance and find inner calm. This course is for anyone who has been wanting to learn Tai Chi, but can't get to lessons or finds the instructor goes too quickly for them.

A step by step guide to get you started learning Tai Chi. Improve your balance and find inner calm. This course is for anyone who has been wanting to learn Tai Chi, but can't get to lessons or finds the instructor goes too quickly for them.

You will improve your balance beyond measure and directing your mind onto the exact ways in which you are changing your balance and moving your body, acts to sooth and calm your mind: mindfulness and meditation.

Guang Ping Yang Style T’ai Chi Ch’uan (Part 1, Movements 1 to 12)

Welcome to Tai Chi for Absolute Beginners. My name is Julia Williams and I am an osteopath and naturopath. I have taught this sequence of Tai Chi movements to clients and patients over the last 20 odd years and find it invaluable as part of helping rehabilitate from back pain or other injuries or simply as a meditation and mindfulness method.

Even just the very first movement in the sequence, which takes just a few minutes to start learning, is a complete exercise in body awareness and balance in its own right. I strongly recommend, that even if you don’t think you want to learn the whole Tai Chi sequence, that you go to that first video and learn Strike Palm, Ask for Blessings. It’s available free as a preview and I would love for you to learn and practise that movement; I know it will bring huge benefits to your body, mind, energy and life.

As I said, I am an osteopath, not a Tai Chi professional. I have not spent years studying under a Tai Chi master and I am sure that my technique is not perfect, but I find that an advantage in teaching Absolute Beginners. I know from my own, and from client’s experiences, that many learning resources for Tai Chi are not easy for an absolute beginner or for those of you with injuries or disabilities, or without that elusive natural ability to learn exercises or dance steps that other’s find effortless. Or even that you just have one of those excessively busy lives that preclude regular classes.

Classes also often cater for several abilities and you can find yourself struggling to follow the movements. Or you learn the movements, but without capturing the true essence of Tai Chi: the movement of awareness and energy.

In the videos that make up this course, I aim to take you through the movements step by step, feeling that essence of awareness and energy right through from the first few minutes.

At the end of the lessons, you will find several complete practice sequences as well as a practice session recorded in slow motion.

I hope you enjoy your experiences. See you in Strike Palm to Ask for Blessings.

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What's inside

Learning objectives

Complete a short tai chi routine.
Theory of use and different techniques.

Practical techniques for joints and regions of body.

Complete a short tai chi routine.
Theory of use and different techniques.
Practical techniques for joints and regions of body.

Syllabus

Start Here

Introduction

How To Take This Course

Practise the first part of the Tai Chi Long Form

Introduction to Strike Palm to Ask For Blessings

Strike Palm to Ask For Blessings

Stroke the Bird’s Tail

Single Whip

Stork Cools Its Wings

Brush, Twist & Step

Apparent Closing, Carry Tiger to the Mountain

Spiralling Hands to Gather Energy

Fist Under Elbow, Repulse the Monkey

Stork Covers Its Wing, Slow Palm Slant Flying, Grand Terminus

Practice Videos

With Commentary 1

With Commentary 2

Without Commentary

Slow Motion Full

More Practice Videos: Final days in the Austria Alps

Practice Video: Final days in Zell am See

Early Days in France: Take a peak at my first day practising in a new place.

Practice doesn’t always go perfectly!

Practice doesn’t always go to plan!

Second practice by the pool (with an audience...)

These next three videos show what happens when there are too many new variables. This grassy slope is actually a lot steeper than the camera makes it look and it’s quite challenging balancing on uneven grass on such a slope. Then we add the extra variables of animals! Freddie, my cat, sneaking his way into shot, while my horse, inquisitive and sensitive as ever, couldn’t decide if the energy movement around Tai Chi was a threat or not! Unfortunately, I allow myself to be distracted by his raised energy! But that’s the point of showing you these videos - practice does not have to be perfect. You learn from mistakes and the not so successful practices as much as you learn and benefit from those times when you are fully mindful and balanced and flowing.

Practice doesn’t always go too well (or never work with animals!)

Practice makes perfect....

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Activities

Be better prepared before your course. Deepen your understanding during and after it. Supplement your coursework and achieve mastery of the topics covered in Tai Chi for Absolute Beginners! (Part 1) with these activities:

Review Tai Chi

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Review the basic concepts of Tai Chi to refresh your memory and better prepare for this course.

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