Upon entering the classroom at the beginning of class you engage in warming up. We do this by first bending the knees slightly, placing the palms of our hands on our knees and rotating our knees together in a clockwise circular fashion and then a counter-clockwise circular fashion. Next we perform Silk Reeling which is a cultivating energy exercise and involves the eliptical movement of one or both hands and arms and the shifting of weight from foot to foot. Next we perform Cloud Hands, which is a circular like warm-up exercise for the arms. Once the warm-ups are over we move to Quigong, which involves three sets of 9 repetitive postures (Cloud Hands, Fair Lady Shuttles Back and Forth, Heaven and Earth, Strike Tiger Right and Left, Part the Horse's Mane, Brush Knee, Double Strike to Ears, Cross Hands, and Push). After Quigong is complete, we move into learning 24 Form Tai Chi Chuan. All this takes about an hour. Approximately 10 minutes for warming up, about 15 to 20 minutes for Quigong, and about 30 minutes for 24 Form instruction.
However, once 24 Form Tai Chi Chuan is entirely learned, it is just the beginning. We can increase class time to 1 1/2 hours to include more challenging, interesting, and rewarding Tai Chi lessons and exercises such as 108 Form Tai Chi Chuan, Push Hands, Fast Set, and more, and develop a very beneficial practice and way of life that will contribute to our health and our understanding of our spiritual, mental, and physical selves for years to come. In the future, you can expect our class to not only expand in number of students but in skills and concepts as well.