Tai Chi warm up exercises

[Anonymous]

I would be very interested to see a short video featuring some very simple warm up exercises that would be beneficial to carry out prior to Tai Chi. Of particular interest would be knee, neck and shoulder exercises. Many thanks for your consideration.

[Anonymous]

I have found that the Circling Hands qigong does the job excellently as a warm up set. It mobilises the whole body and consisting of simpler movements, frees the mind to focus on the internal content too.
Even though the neck is not turned in the exercises, the connective tissues are stretched throughout the movements, and as for knees and shoulders, they are in constant motion. You can do them for 3 minutes or 30, as you choose. You could search for even more simple movements than these, but in terms of effectiveness for time invested I feel Circling Hands is a good place to start.
Hope this is useful, Chris

[Anonymous]

I have been doing the circling hands also as a warm up and has been a great way to get into practicing solo routines.

I noticed when I jumped straight to the full movement of circling hands there is stuff still tight in the legs so I started with standing, or a small steps. 10 min of this and I am doing the full sized (70%) stepping.

It really allows me to be fully there for solo stuff where other Chi Gung I have done there really seems to be a need for some time between solo routines.

All that praise for the Circling Hands aside I would like to know some useful exercises also.

[Anonymous]

Thanks to Christopher and Morgan for their replies. I have been practicing the circling hands exercises too and do find them to be very effective. I will usually do some basic warm ups first though (such as joint rotations) and then move onto circling hands. I find that if I don’t warm up my knees properly they sometimes feel a little glitchy during Tai Chi and Bagua.

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