INTRO
Hi, Welcome back to another Seated Tai Chi and QiGong Session. My name’s Daphne and I’m here today to share with you some Tai Chi, Qigong and Low Impact Exercises you can perform at home. So without further ado, let’s get started. If you haven’t already done so, check out Session 1 Video of this Seated Tai Chi and QiGong – the Seated Sessions Playlist. That will run through in a little bit more detail where to position yourself on the chair so that you can plant your feet onto the floor. And the posture that you want to try and maintain all the way through the exercises. So I’m not going to spend much time on that today but we will plant our feet, get into that posture, grounding our feet into the floor, lifting up and breathing nice and calmly.
WARM UP
And we’ll start with our head to the right and back to centre, and to the left, chin to your chest and with care to the ceiling. Keeping in control, we’re going to look forward and take our ear to our shoulder. Remembering to move our body just within our own comfortable range of motion. Bringing our hands to our sides, we’re going to do three shoulder rolls backwards. So listen to your own body, making sure we’re not pushing it too far. And the other way. Keeping our joints nice and relaxed, all the way through. We’re moving the top of our back only, rolling down nice and slowly. And we’re going to open the chest, lifting it up, looking at the ceiling. And again, rolling it down, opening that chest. Exhaling as we go down and inhaling as we come up. We’re knocking on the door, twisting, just within your own comfort zone, twisting from the waist, only as far as you can, swinging those arms. And bringing it back to centre. We’re just going to lift our heel, peel it off and place it down. And the other side. And again. This time progressing it to a lift, bringing it back. And lift. One more on each side. Big breath in, all the way up, stretching to the sky and bringing it down. Inhale, all the way up, and all the way down. And all the way up and exhaling down.
EXERCISE 1
OK, so our first exercise we are going to hold that Qi Ball, about the size of a football. I don’t mind which hand you have on top. And all we’re going to do is turning this Qi Ball. We’re turning it round. We’re focusing on our breath. So inhaling on the turn, exhaling as we push down. Inhale, opening that chest, and exhale, push into the floor with our feet. Let’s do it again.
EXERCISE 2
Next exercise is called Punching with a Twisted Punch. So we’re actually going to punch forwards but with our palm facing upwards. So making a fist we’re going to punch forward, then going to twist it round and bring it back. And we’re going to punch, twist and bring it back. Let’s do that again. So punch, and twist and bring it back. One more time. Punch, and twist and bring it back. So we’re going to add a step to the side. So just really putting our foot, replacing it in our parallel stance. We’re going to lift our right foot, and put heel, toe and as we do so we’re going to twist to that corner and we’re going to repeat the punch. So we’re going to punch, and twist and then we’re going to bring our foot back into position. So we’re going to do that the other side. So heel, toe, twisting at the waist and we’re going to punch and as we do so we’re going to push into that foot. Bring it back and place it back. So heel, toe and punch, and bring it back in. And heel, toe and punch, and bring it back in.
EXERCISE 3
Our next exercise is called Cross Hands. So we’re bringing our hands, crossing at the wrists, we’re extending them out forwards and we’re bringing them down to our sides. We’re going to do that again. So bringing them in, cross hands, extending out forwards and placing them back down again. And again. Bring them up, take them forwards. And you can push down into your thighs and into the feet as you bring your hands down. Open out and down.
EXERCISE 4
Back to our Qi Ball. We’re Holding up the Heaven and Earth. So we’re reaching out and we’re pressing one palm down and one palm high, and bringing them back to the ball. So taking this lower hand, pushing it out, up to the ceiling, opening that chest and bringing it back down. Bottom hand, lifting it high and bringing it in. Bottom hand, pushing high and bringing it in.
EXERCISE 5
Final exercise is called Wild Goose Flying. So we’re do the arms first, it’s a nice inhale as we spread our wings and bring them back down. And again, opening the chest as we reach out through the fingertips and bring them down. Remembering to keep our arms soft, our elbows aren’t locking out, we’re not over extending. And as we are lowering our hands we can push back in, using the thigh muscles to push down into the floor. Now we’re going to add a heel raise. So as we are lifting our arms up we’re going to lift our heels off the floor, keeping the balls of the feet on the floor and bringing them back down again. So lifting up, lifting those heels and bringing them back down. Big breath in and all the way down. Final time.
FINISH
Gathering the arms into the Dan Tien. Let’s hold it here. Three breaths in. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale.