Relaxation exercises

• Start in horse stance, put both hands over your lower abdomen.


• Shift your weight onto your right foot, lift your left foot and bring it into meet your right and then back out to step to a point just in front of where it was in the horse stance but pointing out at about 45.


• Only when your foot is down shift your weight forward on to your left foot. Your pelvis needs to be at the same height as you shift your weight so adjust the amount of flexion in your knees so that you don’t bob up and down.

When you feel comfortable with the walk move on to this one. The palm strike illustrates most of the essential principles of tai chi and is also relevant for guitar players. The aim of the technique is to transfer the force generated by pushing into the floor with your leg through the rest of your body to the palm of your hand. Learning this exercise will develop:

This exercise resembles the motion of the hammers on a Tibetan hand drum. It's another one that adds movement to the basic horse stance albeit a little more vigorous than the previous. The emphasis here is on allowing the movement that originates from the pelvis to find its way to the hands without being impeded by any tension in the pelvis, the upper body or the arm and shoulder.

This is another breathing exercise that you’ll do standing up. We use it in tai chi practice to make fine adjustments to posture. Traditionally it is used to enhance the flow of chi in the upper body, the practitioner allows the chi to flow through the arms and across the chest in a circle. Whether or not we are impressed with these ancient ideas at the end of the day it works and these theories simply explain our experience. We can take another perspective on what is happening.