Curriculum

The Tai Chi Form

The traditional Tai Chi form contains 108 movements, and takes about twenty minutes to perform, and six to twelve months to learn.
For that reason, Flow Tai Chi teaches beginners a short version of the long form, which still contains all the essential movements but without the repetitions. The long form has A LOT of repetitions!
Then, one still gets all the benefits of the long form, without the feeling of frustration that often comes trying to memorise the whole 108 movement sequence of the long form.

Both the short and long forms are great tools for you to develop greater awareness of your body, its mechanics and how all parts work together. It is also a deep meditation, and reduces stress. Other benefits are better flexibility and strength, cardiovascular fitness, better balance and coordination, better posture, and is excellent for increasing overall mobility.

Qi Gong

Qi Gong is too often shrouded in magic and mystery, but it is really simple.

Qi (or Chi) means ‘breath’, often referring to the inner breath travelling through your body via meridians, but Qi is also ‘energy’ for the body when inhaling oxygen running through our blood, and helping repair our body. ‘Gong’ is ‘work’, so Qi Gong is breath work in view of boosting the function of your body and benefit both physical and mental health.
Slow diaphragmatic breathing is key to better utilise oxygen intake to encourages full oxygen exchange — that is, the beneficial trade of incoming oxygen for outgoing carbon dioxide. Not surprisingly, it can slow the heartbeat and lower or stabilize blood pressure.

Breath work is only part of Qi Gong, meditation is also an important element as only a calm meditative state of mind allows your attention to be directed inwardly, giving you the chance to pause, observe and question your inner self.

Your body can be exercised to improve its health and reach, but so can be your breath, and your mind through meditation and Qi Gong practice.

Qi is also an energy that circulate throughout the body via acupuncture meridians. There are key points, along these meridians, with gates that need to be opened in order to facilitate energy flow. At Flow Tai Chi, we will teach you how to open these gates and let the Qi travel freely throughout your whole body.

Meditation

The Tai Chi form is called a meditation in movement, because the slow pace cultivates being present and in the moment (Here and Now), also, focusing on performing each moves perfectly develops attention and focus, body awareness and coordination, and with its deep breathing, the Tai Chi form cultivate the body-mind connection, as the breath is the bridge between the body and the mind.

Flow Tai Chi uses different meditation techniques in addition to the Tai Chi form, one of them is used by the military and law enforcement as a method of using your breath to change how you feel physically and emotionally to further focus your attention and improve your performance.
Another method is extremely useful to know and use when under extreme stress, such as a major trauma. Another technique will be your best friend when you need to keep your cool in every day little challenges that life throws at you, such as an angry driver, or a frustrated co-worker.

Remember, just as you can train your muscles to be physically stronger, you can also train your mind to be more resilient and adapt to situations rapidly, instead of going in total panic and freeze.

The Technical Exercises

The 24 Technical Exercises are a unique set of movements that helps you cultivate all skills needed to practice Tai Chi. There is 12 Yin and 12 Yang exercises; some are breathing exercises, others train the breath, body-mind connection, flexibility or physical strength.

Each exercise, is repeated at will and can be performed individually, or in a sequence. You can choose to practice only one or more of the 24 technical exercises in view of developing only a certain area of your Tai Chi (breath, mind, strength, etc).

These are essential exercises to make Tai Chi an effective martial art, but are also extremely beneficial for cultivating your general health, focus, coordination, flexibility and strength.

The Taoist Gymnastic

This ancient Taoist Gymnastic (168 BC) is a great set of movements used to develop joint strength and flexibility.

These movements work on opening and strengthening every joints in your body. I have had student adamant that they were totally inflexible, changing their mind soon after performing these exercises and marveling on how supple their body became.

Flexibility and supple joints are vital to a better blood circulation, contribute to muscle relaxation and better coordination. With this exercise you can therefore reduce back pain, blood pressure, improve your range of motion, develop better balance, prevent injury, help improve metabolic health and support healthier glucose levels, promote healthy posture, and alleviate soreness and tight muscles that could lead to injury and chronic pain.

Martial Art

Tai Chi is a martial art at its source.

Granted, Tai Chi is not the preferred technique that comes to mind when one wants to learn how to fight, but it really is only largely due to society following trends, and what is popular at the time.

Every martial arts can be used effectively, if you know how to.

The principles of Tai Chi, are to not rely on strength and speed to win a fight. Of course we all suspect that speed and strength will give an edge to any fighter, but not so much when you also consider that staying relaxed (soft vs hard) will invariably make your strikes faster, and more powerful.

Just ask any professional fighter and they will not disagree.

In a Flow Tai Chi class, we will show you how to use the movements contained in the form as a practical self-defense tool. It is surprisingly fun to practice these martial arts techniques on a partner, study the body mechanics at play, and see what anyone can achieve with a few simple techniques. As for most skills, simplicity is best and more effective.