Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5986 in VHS
• Released on: 2003-07-07
• Rating: Exempt
• Format: PAL
• Number of tapes: 1

Synopsis
A beginners guide to the ancient practice of Tai Chi, which aids health, fitness and relaxation. Features six steps: 'One Warm Up Exercise', 'Two Stretching Exercises', 'Three Cool Down Exercises', 'Four Qigong Exercises', 'Five Foundational Movements' and 'The Beginner's Set'.

Customer Reviews

Clear, beautifully paced, extremely helpful video
On this tape Dr. Paul Lam teaches warm-up exercises, 5 qigong movements, and 6 tai chi movements, the latter combining to form a short tai chi set, performed straight through a number of times at the end of the tape. The warm-ups are thorough but gentle, the qigong is energizing, and I find the tai chi movements easier to follow than on any of the other tapes I own, and, in fact, than in my Tai Chi class!!! (That's sacrilege I suppose, but there it is). The moves are demonstrated from a number of angles, and at crucial points we're told to follow a student with her back to us while Dr. Lam faces front, a great way of solving the left/right movement problem. Dr. Lam's own performance of Tai Chi is very inspiring to watch, but there's no sense of arrogance, rather a feeling of caring; he invites the viewer to join in, in the gentlest possible way. The lessons are geared towards all ages, showing how to use a chair as a prop, for example if your balance is a bit dicey, and equally demonstrating how to make some moves a bit more challenging if you wish. The inside of the cover gives a suggested combination programme of practice, over a number of weeks. My only criticism of this is that you have to fast forward, rewind etc. a lot, in order to follow these combinations. But this is a quibble - the quality of instruction is such that it's well worth sitting down and 'indexing' the tape yourself, a little bit of work which pays dividends in making navigating the lessons much easier. A wonderful production - thank you Paul Lam!