Many in-person classes and videos teach Tai Chi as if it were “dance choreography.” The instructor leads you through a series of connected movements (called a form) with instructions such as “put this hand here, this foot there, and move this way.” You watch the instructor and copy her/his movements, just as you would in a ballet class or performance dance class.

On the other hand, online Tai Chi programs tend to focus on “skills” rather than forms. Rather than teaching you complicated choreography, the online program will teach you simple, single movements, or very short forms of usually no more than four or five connected movements. But the goal isn’t to learn the movements. The goal is to learn the skills behind the movements.

One of the great benefits to this online, skills-based approach is that you often faster improvements in your health and vitality. You don’t have to learn a lot of complicated dance moves before you see benefits. Many students report improved levels of relaxation and energy right from their first lesson with a skills-based approach.

Another benefit to the online approach is that you’ll learn more than just Tai Chi. You’ll learn movement skills that you can apply to many different types of movements. These skills will give you freedom of movement that you’ll carry with you outside of Tai Chi into your daily life!

Of course, there are some limitations to learning online. If you are interested in Tai Chi for martial arts, it’s difficult to learn this online. While online courses might demonstrate some simple self-defense applications, it will be difficult to learn them and impossible to practice if you train on your own.  In addition, if you are interested in tui shou (“two-person Tai Chi drills’), that also might be difficult to learn online.

But if your interest is in health, stress relief, energy, vitality and Chi development, an online Tai Chi program might just be right for you.

So how do you know if an online Tai Chi program is right for you? Look for programs that provide free samples or a low-cost introductory trial. Some programs even provide free trials or money-back guarantees. This allows you to try out the course first with little risk to see if it’s right for you.

Unlike a class, which you’ll have to fit into your busy schedule, online programs are generally available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can log in and learn when you want, and you can learn at your own pace. You don’t need to try to keep up with a class. Because let’s face it – if you miss a class or two in Tai Chi, you can quickly become lost. You won’t have that problem with an online program.

In addition, you can often get access to masters and professional instructors online that you would not normally get to meet, since they are outside your local area. Many of them provide email support or support forums for their courses, so you can get direct answers right from them.

We recommend the following online programs:

• ChiFusion Tai Chi and Qigong

  This program uses a modern, kinesthetic approach to learning Tai Chi, and it includes Qigong practices as well. There’s no martial arts content in this course, since the emphasis is on an “energy arts” perspective for health, stress relief, and chi development. But the whole idea behind this program is to get you to “feel” the movements by including a lot of experiments and details, rather than having you just follow along.

  This program was one of the first online Tai Chi programs. It has also been on the web for a long time, and has lots of students, so that says something for it. They offer a free sample lesson (click here) to get you started.

• Shaolin Qigong Home Study

  Not really a Tai Chi program, but a program in Tai Chi’s sister art, Qigong. This program is much more traditional in the information it covers and the way it teaches the information. It includes a variety of sitting and standing Qigong practices, including some meditation. They are also taught with detailed information, plus a lot of traditional theory about Qigong.

  This is one of the newer online programs, but ironically, the newest is one of the most traditional. They offer a low cost trial (click here) to get you started.

A few people have asked me the best way to learn from an online Tai Chi course.

Here’s what I suggest …

When you are ready to learn, go to your computer and log into the online course. Go to the lesson you are working on, or the next lesson if you are ready to move on. Read through the new lesson for that week, paying attention to the benefits given for the lesson, the step-by-step instruction, and the details for the lesson. You may also want to print out the lesson, especially if you don’t have a laptop or iPad you can move around.

Now take your laptop or printouts to your practice area (if you don’t have room in your computer room). Start trying to practice the movements, from the printouts, computer, or iPad.

If you are practicing in front of your laptop, iPad, or computer, I strongly urge you NOT to get into the habit of following along with the videos in the online lesson. Following along a few times is OK, but make sure practice the movements WITHOUT the video, so you really learn it.

Work on the details for the movement from the online course. These details will help you customize the movements to your body and mind. As you are practicing, if you forget how a movement goes or if the printed photo is not clear, go back to your PC to watch the movement and examine the original photos, but try not to practice in front of the computer. Go back to your practice space to work.

Of course, these are just suggestions. The greatest benefit to online Tai Chi  courses is that you can organize your learning and practice the way that works BEST FOR YOU!

Why should you study Tai Chi online? Wouldn’t a DVD be better?

And what do you do if you don’t have room in front of your computer to practice?

Many people don’t realize that learning Tai Chi online offers a number of benefits over learning from a DVD. And that you don’t need space in your computer room to practice from an online course!

The primary problem with most Tai Chi DVDs is that they tend to put people into “follow-along” learning mode. In most Tai Chi and Qigong programs, you watch the instructor, either in class or on video, and then follow along with the video or instructor in what we call “monkey-see, monkey-do” fashion.

Many online programs, by contrast, are not follow-along programs. Most instructors, even offline in their in-person classes, have found the “monkey-see, monkey-do” approach to be ineffective and time-consuming. As a result, we DON’T want you practicing Tai Chi in front of a TV or a computer monitor. That approach is counter-productive to Chi Development.

So even if though most online programs includes video, you don’t play the video and try to follow along with the teacher like you do on a DVD. Instead, you use the video to get an overall idea of how the movements look, but you use the text and photos to get the details for the movements and customize the movements for yourself – according to your own strengths and weaknesses.

What students with limited space in their computer rooms or without a computer in their practice room do is this.

They watch the video portions of the online program on their PCs just to get an idea of the movements, then print out the text and photos that are part of the course. They take the print-outs to their practice space to work on the details and on learning the movements for themselves. If they forget how a move goes or if the printed photo is not clear, they may go back to their PC to watch the movement and examine the high-quality photos, but then they go back to their practice space to work.

This is quite a bit different from what you might expect in a Tai Chi program – but unlike most Tai Chi instructors, online teacher are not intending to produce “monkeys” who can follow along with them or copy them. They are intending to have you get the most benefits by learning customizing the movements for your body … right from your first lesson.

You know, there are thousands of registered students for these computer-based online Tai Chi courses, and many had misgivings about learning in this format.

While not everyone can make the transition to “not following along”, it’s actually much more like studying with the high-level Tai Chi masters. In in-person training with these masters, you spend almost no time following along. They may demonstrate a movement a few times while you watch, but rarely did they do the movements in front of you with you following. Instead, you spent a majority of the time working on our own in learning the skills involved.

In this way, online courses are very much like studying the advanced training taught by high-level masters.

If you are having a health problem, obviously you should consult a physician or a health professional before engaging in any physical activity or before  taking any advice from any exercise program.

However, many people around the world turn to Tai Chi for help with their health issues. Can Tai Chi help you with your health problems? There are a number of factors that will affect your results:

1. What you are practicing

   Certain styles and practices in Tai Chi are better for health and healing than others.

2. How much you practice each week

   Daily is ideal, but I’d say at least five to six days a week is the minimum.

3. How often you practice during the day

   Most people practice once a day. But if your health allows and you can work in two or three practice sessions spread out during the day, you might see faster results.

4. Genetic factors

   There may be genetic factors that may limit the results you achieve. In Tai Chi, we call this “pre-birth jing”, but all that means is that you may have inherited limitations that will affect your results.

5. Lifestyle factors

   Of course, all the Tai Chi in the world won’t do you any good if the rest of your lifestyle doesn’t support your practice. So if you engage in health-draining behaviors outside of Tai Chi, it will be like trying to drive with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake. No matter how hard you press on the Tai Chi gas, the lifestyle brake will inhibit your progress.

How did “Tai Chi” get its name?

Well, you may have heard the terms “yin” and “yang”, or even seen the yin/yang symbol like the one at right. Well Tai Chi takes its name from the concepts of yin and yang.

The terms “yin” and “yang” originally came from the observation of sunlight and shadows. The ancient Chinese noticed how the sun would shine on one side of an object illuminating it, and how the opposite side would be darkened by shadows.

They also noticed that there wasn’t a clear demarcation between the “sunny” side and the “dark” side, but variations of light changing to darkness as you walked around the object. They also noticed that as the sun moved across the sky, the patterns of sunlight and shadow would change, demonstrating an “ebb-and-flow” nature to the experience.

From this initial “visual” experience of light and dark, the Chinese eventually noticed similar ebb-and-flow in other sensory experiences – sound (with degrees from loud to soft), touch (from hard to soft), sensation (warm to cold), and kinesthesia (motion to rest). They also began detecting ebb-and-flow patterns in other experiences, such as time, weather, seasonal changes, cycles in nature, our health, cycles of birth and death, cycles of work, and many more.

ALL OF THESE EXPERIENCES THAT STRONGLY EXCITED or stimulated the senses, such as sunlight, loudness, and motion, the ancient Chinese called yang. When the senses were stimulated weakly or not at all, such as in darkness, quietness, and rest, they called it yin. However, the ancient Chinese realized the yin and yang are not “absolutes”, but descriptions of the ebb-and-flow in sensory experiences.

How do yin and yang apply to Tai Chi? Well first of all, the term “Tai Chi” originally did not refer to movement exercises or martial arts. Instead the term was first used to refer to this relative mapping of “yin” and “yang”. Yes, the term “Tai Chi” for many, many centuries referred to the ebb-and-flow of yin and yang. Though the exercises you now know as “Tai Chi” have been around for three or four centuries, it is only within the last half of that time period that they’ve been called “Tai Chi”.

How did these movements acquire this name? A Chinese scholar by the name of Ong Tong, after watching a demonstration of the movement art in the 1800′s, said that the movements seemed to be a physical manifestation of “Tai Chi”, the ebb-and-flow principle of yin and yang. Since the movements are derived from martial arts (called ch’uan or quan in Chinese), the movement art eventually came to be called Tai Chi Ch’uan (taijiquan), which literally means “yin/yang fist”.

The Bow Stance is the most common stance used in Tai Chi. The Bow Stance, more than any stance Tai Chi and Qigong, strikes a balance between stability and mobility. You will feel rooted and grounded in this stance, but still able to move your body freely.

When it comes to Bow Stances where your weight is shifted forward (called the Forward Bow Stance), you’ll find that there are two different types of Forward Bow Stances taught by Tai Chi masters. You can differentiate between these two types by the relative position of your feet and hands while you are in the Forward Bow Stance.

While different teachers have different names for these two stances, we’ll use two terms you may have heard – “twist step” and “favorable step”. Wen-Shan Huang, a student of Chen Wei Ming and Tung Ying Chieh, who in turn were students of Yang Cheng Fu (the grandmaster of today’s Yang Family Style Tai Chi), documented these terms in his book.

Twist Step

“Twist step” refers a forward bow stance in which the opposite hand and foot are forward. For example, if you are in a right-foot-forward bow stance, but your left hand is extending in front of you, then you are in a “twist step”.

This term is actually used in the names of some Tai Chi stances, such as “Brush Knee and Twist Step” (shown at right).

Some people believe the “twist” in the name “Brush Knee and Twist Step” refers to the waist turn in the movement, but that’s not the case. It simple describes the final position of the hands and feet.

Favorable Step

As opposed to twist step, “favorable step” refers to a forward bow stance in which the forward hand is on the same side as the forward foot.

For example, if you are in a right-foot-forward bow stance, and your right hand is extending in front of you, then you are in a “favorable step”. Tai Chi movements such as Single Whip (shown at right) are technically called “favorable step stances.”

Note that “favorable” does not carry any connotation of “favorite” or “better” in this context. Think more of how we use the word “favor” as in “He is favoring his left side when he walks.”

I first learned about the concept of “body signals” from my teaching partner (and certified nutritional advisor), Carole Taylor. Carole uses “body signals” with her health clients to make sure they are on the right track to getting the proper nutrition for health and longevity.

Carole says that your body sends you clear and easy signals that tell you if you’ve eaten properly. Most people, however, don’t know to look for these signals, or how to interpret them if they receive them.

Well, your body does the same thing when you practice Tai Chi and Qigong, and you have to know how to look for these signals. Specifically, your body signals the effects of your Tai Chi through (1) your energy level, (2) your mental reactions, and (3) your emotional reactions.

Be aware though that, unlike food-based reactions, which happen generally within 1 to 2 hours of eating, Tai Chi and Qigong-based reactions can sometimes actually take longer. While some people experience signals during or immediately after practice, it’s not unusual for there to be a “delay effect” of several hours up to a full day in body signals from Tai Chi and Qigong.

For example, one of our students who had numerous physical problems once told us his peak always occurred about three hours after practice. “I don’t know what it is, but I just feel great after about three hours,” he said, despite having constant pain from a hip injury. “The pain just seems to disappear and stays gone for several hours. I’ve never had that happen before.”

This delay effect has been identified by psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), which studies how the nervous system, endocrine system, and immune system interact. PNI has also studied how these systems interact through chemicals that are released by practices like Tai Chi and Qigong.

Generally, these systems interact through chemical secretions, including a variety of chemicals known as “neuropeptides”. According to the late Robert Anton Wilson, Ph.D., “Since neuropeptides travel through virtually all body fluids (blood, lymph, cerebrospinal fluid, etc.) as well as between neurons, the neuropeptide system acts more slowly but more holistically than the central nervous system.”

What this means is that while the effects of practice may be happening “during” practice, your brain may delayed in getting the “signals” from these effects. So in looking for body signals from your Tai Chi practice, make sure you pay attention to how you feel over a 2 to 24 hour period after practice. Check your energy level, look for how mentally sharp your thinking appears, and notice any feelings of happiness or well-being.

Most people find that there will be a “peak” in these body signals somewhere during the 24 hours after practice. And if you practice at the same time each day, often times you’ll notice that the peak will occur at the same time each day as well.

.

.