Element: Tai Chi For Beginners

Element: Tai Chi for Beginners is filmed on a tranquil garden location overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Same set as Element: Ballet Conditioning.

Music: by Daveed

Choreography: by Samuel Barnes

Equipment: Nothing, not even a mat.

Done barefoot.

Chapters:

Qi Gong 19 minutes.

This segment contains meditative breathing that targets the low back and shoulders. There is also twisting moves done with lose tension free arms side to side.

Tai Chi Postures 23 minutes.

This (Instructional) segment includes the following postures:

Lifting Hands

Ward Off Left

Ward Off Right

Roll Away

Press

Guard The Temples and Push

Single Whip

Snake Creeps Down

Step Up Form Seven Stars

Step Back To Ride The Tiger

360 Degree Turn

Cross Wave Like Lilly Kick

Bend The Bow and shoot The Arrow

Release, Retreat, Parry and Punch

Uncrossing Of The Hands and Push

Turn Forward to Close

Tai Chi Flow 12 minutes.

This is the actual Tai Chi sequence. Samuel performs it twice. Alot less instruction so you flow from one posture to the next.

Play Complete Program 56 minutes.

In the first segment "Qi Gong" Samuel focuses on breath and energy flow. This prepares the mind and body for Tai chi. It is meditative breathing. This could also be used as a stand alone segment during stressful times.

In the second segment "Tai Chi Postures". This is totally instructional. Samuel goes step by step. Once you have mastered the moves there is no need to ever do this segment again. Samuel repeats each posture twice before moving on to a new one.

Samuel then ends with an affirmation for positive thinking. He includes a blessing and thanking the universe.

Comments:

I found this workout to be relaxing. However I was disappointed to find out that I would only be using two segments of this 56 min. workout. I say this because the second segment is totally instructional and I would not spend anymore time on it.

The reason I bought this workout was because it had short segments of Tai Chi and Qi Gong. Since I have had good experiences with Qi Gong especially, I thought how nice it would be to have shorter practices that could easily fit any lifestyle. So for those considering this keep that in mind.

Some of my favorite workouts in this genre are: Lee Holden and Matthew Cohen which did "Qi Gong Fire & Water". Lee does have some shorter workouts but pricey, and Matthew's has two 40 minute workouts on one DVD. I would love for Matthew to do another DVD with shorter practices.

All that being said it is nice to have segment one "Qi Gong" as a stress relief workout and Segment three "Tai Chi" as a short Tai Chi flow sequence. These two segments fit nicely with any busy lifestyle. Of course the beautiful scenery will relax anyone.