Monday Evening I attended a class at Oglebay Resort at their Spa Movement Studio. The facility is quite lovely – beautiful hardwood flooring, two walls of mirrors with ballet barres, and windows overlooking a patio with the hills of the Wheeling, West Virginia resort and golf courses providing a beautiful view. But back to T’ai chi.
In addition to the instructor, S., there was just one resort guest present, so we each received lots of personalized instruction. We began and ended with QiGong, a traditional warm-up of gentle movements beginning with the head and moving through large movements with the arms and ending with small movements of the feet and ankles. We then worked on Form 24 a “choreography” that comprises the majority of movements we use in most of the different forms. Sometimes I am able to remember what comes next so that I can work on finer details such as posture, height at which my hands and arms are to be held, etc., and sometimes the movements look like something I’ve never tried before.
I was able to reassure the other participant that he didn’t have to worry about anyone ever watching him in a class because everyone would always be concentrating on what they were trying to remember and how it was supposed to be done. Our instructor keeps saying that eventually the movements just “flow” and we will perform them in a relaxed mode. Ha! But it doesn’t matter. It’s the most enjoyable and fastest hour of the day.
I found some demonstration videos of Form 24 with English subtitles on YouTube and copied this link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?V=eXYxqz5mlbU I had to highlight the link and copy it in my browser and it brought up some strange videos in addition to Form 24, so you might just want to Google T’ai Chi Form 24 and scan the selections for English subtitles and try some till you find what you like.
In future Blogs, I’ll introduce you to simpler Forms.
Get moving 🙂
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