Tai Chi after brain injury with Dr Giles Yeates

so thank you guys I'm really honored to um be joining you all today so yeah I've I've got kind of two identities I've brought together more recently so I'm um I've been working in brain injury Rehabilitation as a psychologist for 20 years um and um I'd always been my spare times on marshal arts uh Kung Fu and taii and that's involved going to China to training with uh monks and nuns in the temples in the mountains in China I've been very privileged and lucky to be able to do that um and then over the last few years um I've been interested in bringing the two together so to bring in uh Tai Chi chiong

Yoga um as ways of uh opportunities for working on the body and the mind at the same time as part of a journey after brain injury um and there's been quite a bit of research on this already I was surprised to find um but it was often done as more of a physio kind of intervention whereas the secret taii as we'll discover today is the mind and how the body is a vehicle to getting into a particular place in our mind um so I really want us to explore that just just um what we're going to do we're going to try something uh for a little period of time and then come back together I'll take some questions about it and it we try something else come back and we'll do switch between that so if I'm doing something and it's really not making sense or really difficult just bear with it and then sooner or later we'll touch back in as a group and we can have a conversation about it

um the difference between something taiichi and something like physiotherapy is that yes we're going to be doing movements and we're going to be doing postures using our body in a way that's beneficial to things like uh joint Mobility um balance muscle strength and all this it all of these things benefit from doing these kind of practices regularly but what's different to Physio is that we don't have a goal of um doing something physical as our main aim and we make sure that the practices are saced otherwise our goal is using the physical movement to get into a state of mind and I'm going to call that a flow

State and many of you may kind of experience being in the flow in at times in your life maybe you do other Hobbies or activities might even be something doing a bit of the houseworth or something where you just forget who you are and you're just in that zone in that flow so that's what we try and aim for in taiichi and the movements and the Rhythm and the shapes and the changes in the movements help us do that now for some people those movements might be really physically demanding and um it might be standing up it might be moving in very intricate ways um other people the movements might be um smaller or be B heated in a seat position there are all different ways to get into the same place which is this Flow State that's the main idea and I wouldn't want anyone to try anything that's so physically demanding for them that they're not in a relaxed state that they're worried about falling over or hurting themselves um that's not taiy

okay that's just physical torture um so we want this to be a way of getting into a relaxed State okay so with that in mind I'm we're going to look at some different movements and I'm going to always give a series of options okay an option will be doing it seated or standing I'm seated right now you might feel like you want to stay seated the whole session you might feel actually I want to get up and and and and there's an option for you to sound and you want to have that that kind of expansion in your body great as long as it doesn't take away from being relaxed and I'm also going to do options of using using one side of the body one arm or one leg um and then both sides of the body changing over and you know depending on how your brain injuries impacted your life um one side may be available to you but not the other side so I'm going to give options to explore that importantly I'm going to give the

taii perspective on when one side of the body doesn't work so well which I think is quite a unique perspective might be interest to some of you all right um but I'm going to say right now that most the most important movement the most important thing that we do today is breathing it's the breath and it's it's something that taii chiong Kung Fu yoga all share a lot of these East ancient Eastern Mind Body Traditions share a FOC focus on breathing stretching to a certain extent and kind of a mental focus linked to the breathing and that's really key and that's that's been shown in research to have a big impact on fatigue for example

so um I think this stuff has a lot of value for each of your Journeys going forward and living with and the impact of a brain injury but I'm going to stop waffling on and we're going to get into it um there is a video out there where there's a bit more of a background some of these ideas um you may have been forwarded that link already space if you've not had that link we make sure that gets out to you can check that video out if you want to know the background to both taii it's role in brain injury and these kind of things all right so we're going to start off you might want to start off seated and stay seated you might want to start off standing you might want to change

standing I'll give you some options as we go in what we're going to do is just kind of warm up the joints in the body first of all so if you're seated um if possible try and straighten your backs maybe come on the edge of your chair so try not to be slumped where possible try and um get some lift in your body one way shape or form all right so what we're going to do we're just going to warm up the body a little bit so if both hands are available to you I want you to insulate the fingers and stretch them up like this okay if one arm is one hand is available I want you just to take the good arm and just extend it up okay and then we're just going to twist to one side gently doesn't matter which side just twist the one side not doing the Tai and then come back to the middle I should be able to do after and then twist to the other

side and then come back right and just release the hands and if both hands are available to you reach one hand up and then the other just

alternating and we want a gentle approach to this stuff so don't force anything the key idea and taii is that a drop of water will erode away a mountain eventually so we're in this stuff for the long gam okay gentle approaches have changed a longer last and reduce injury that's and bring one of both arms down lovely and then we're going to slowly look to one

side and then bring our head back and slowly look to the other

side and bring our head back and then if it's okay we're going to gently bring one ear towards one shoulder yeah nice and gentle Don't Force

anything and then slowly change so the other ear come towards the other

shoulder and then come up then I just want you to dip your chin in and then Circle the heads to one side and then Circle it down to the other shoulder just for not a full circle just half circle for one shoulder come

that round and then come up and then come to the middle lovely now I'm going to work on my shoulders basically this bit we just have warm up and we're undoing life okay we're undoing the impact of how we hold ourselves during the course of the day and the idea is that this unblocks everything and allows the energy of the taii work to slow for so now we've kind of done the head and the shoulder we're going to the head and neck against the shoulders I want you to bring your shoulders up to your ears and then roll them

back everything rising to the years rolling back

if one shoulder one side is more responsive focus on that but maybe find if if this is the center line your body think about everything coming up find a center point that blends both sides of the body I'll talk a bit more about one side of the body is unresponsive in a minute brilliant and then we're going to change the angle all of those rotations so shoulders up to the ears now rolling forward towards the camera towards

me

right okay then take one arm whatever's uh available to you preferred arm and then keep it bending I just want you to circle the elbow back

right and then change direction Circle It

Forward the taii is both a martial arts and a health practice so right now we're loosening up the shoulders but this is this is a martial arts move at the same time and it does some nasty stuff if you use it in a combat situation that's the interesting thing about taiichi it's both martial art and health it's Ed for your health but it can be use for defense as well really interesting okay now if the other arm is available to you same thing lift the elbow and circle it back if the other arm isn't available to you I want you to see which what you can own from this other side of the body body that's not available if if you can own the chest area can you have an intention of moving from the center of the body if you can if you can reclaim the shoulder if the shoulder aable can you think about suring the shoulder so if the arm and the Hand itself is not available to you where where what is which bit of the body can you have access to focus on

that Circle and we're going to talk a bit more about that later

and then change

direction okay great okay so hands down now take your preferred arm and cross it over your body now if you're on a chair hold on to the edge of the chair and then use that to twist the body to one side looking over your shoulder

then come back around to the middle if the other arm is failed here you do then cross it over your body grab hold of the chair if if one side isn't AV fail you use the same arm but put it on the other side of the chair and whichever hand using it use it to lever the body to the other side and try and try and extend come up tall as we do that so the body going up and then tting around some of you might know this some chair Bas y then coming back all right so I'm hoping the upper body is feeling a little bit more enlivened and Freer now we're just going to do the lower body as well so um you're not going to be able to see my feet right now so I'll just talk us through it so I want you to lift the heels of your feet so one or both feet if both feet available lift both heels with the feet push the toes the baller foot into the ground if one leg is avable to you just lift that one and then lower the heels down of the feet you're lifting the heels up the feet

which pushes the the toes and the ball of the feet into the floor and down and once more lift the heels up and down and then take one leg and I want you to lift the whole foot up so this is my knee here my knee is lifting up coming down knee lifting up and down lifting the knee the whole foot coming up and down and then an option here with the same leg lift the foot up and if it deves you extend the foot forward don't push into pain or discomfort just giving the leg a bit more of a stretch and bring it down and then just take a moment come up tall again if possible now we're going to try the other leg all right right so if the other leg is available to you we're going to repeat that um if the other leg's not available to you you've got a couple of options here you can use the hand and passively lift the leg up with the hand or you can just focus on

the previous leg for another round so if the other foot fil to you you're going to lift the heel up sorry lift the whole foot up and come down lifting the knee so the whole foot comes off the floor and down once more knee up foot up down and then the option here lift the knee and then extend the foot forward so the whole leg is parallel to the floor and bring it down nice and then let's just have a just circle a little bit in our hips just circle body round just uh relax the hips and then Circle way so imagine you're doing a hula hoop on a chair

okay so that's the preparation that's just getting us ready all right hopefully the body feels a little bit more responsive so we're going to have a look at one thing and we're going to try it out and I'm going to show some options and and then we'll stop another chat and checking with each other so as I said before the the most important thing is the breath okay so we're going to focus on breathing now we breathe hundreds of thousands of times each day if we become aware of how we breathe each one of those breaths can be an opportunity for a bit of healing a bit of nourishment um a bit of a resource to the mind as well as the body so the first thing that many Eastern TRS do is check in on that breathing process so what I want you to do is put your hands on your belly

and maybe just kind of make sure that part of the hand is below the belly button if possible if one hand is not so good I want you to sandwich that in the middle and put a good hand on top all right otherwise put your hands on your belly whatever way you like I want you to imagine that there's a balloon in your belly all right it's a balloon in your belly and we're going to breathe in to our belly to INF the balloon and we're going to do that through our nose I want you to take a slow deep breath in for your

nose and imagine there's that balloon get that breath right down down your throat down past your chest down here to your belly and inflate that balloon with the breath and then slowly let the breath come out of the balloon the balloon shrivels up the breath comes out the breath can come out back through your nose it can come out of your mouth wherever you feel comfortable with to keep it that it goes in through your nose if possible so breathing in for your nose

slowly and deeply down into your belly inflate that

balloon and breathing

out balloon deflate shels up the belly falls back down so as you breathe in the belly should rise should fill your

hands so just check in a that sometimes we have a habit of doing the opposite we tend to our suuck our belly in as we breathe in so just bring your awareness and just see as you breathe in does my belly go out does it fill my hands then as I breathe out as my belly fall back in towards my spine

once more breathing

in filling that

balloon breathing out so we are already doing Tai Chi right now we're doing the most important bit of Tai Chi the breath coming in expanding Insider and then going out there's already a movement

here whatever else we do for the rest of this hour this is the most important B so now and again I'm going to bring us back to this deep breath in into our belly and this deep breath out it's more important than anything else we do next with our hands or our legs or whatever okay so we're going to create a ripple from this breath in so as the breath comes in our stomach expands we're going to start to Ripple out now at this point if you want to stay seated stay seated if you fancy standing up by what mean do stand up option here would be standing up still holding on to your belly breathing it out okay whever feels right I don't want you to make standing too much of a challenge a balance and when you say that state of mind so I'm going to go back to seated just option but if you're up enjoy being up

okay now we're going to Ripple this balloon out of our bodies now so what's going to happen as we breathe in our balloon expands and then our hands Come Out imagine the balloons come out of your belly and is expanding hands coming out and then you're going to as you breathe out you're going to push that balloon back into your

belly breathing in the balloon comes out imagine this big balloon expanding in front of you your hands on the edge of the balloon and as you breathe out you're pushing the balloon back in your belly feeling and standing breathing in circles

out breathing out and back to your belly once more breathing

in and out keep the should shoulders as relaxed as possible the others relaxed if one arm is available to you you're going to do it one arm if half the balloon is expanding out to one side and you're going to push it back

down yeah so if you're sat down is one arm that's tracing a balloon coming out of one side if both arms are available you're doing two-handed to Armed version

keep

relaxed and as you repeat these movements let yourself kind of be hypnotized by them just go in the flow of the

movements try and forget about anything else once you have the movement forget about me until I see something new we're going to just stick on this for a little while you can just Zone me out and just zoom in to your own movement that you're doing just for

you keep the breath going deep breath in deep breath out

we do one

more great now we're going to change it come to have if both hands are available to you have the Palms facing each other if one hand is available to you have the Palm facing in and you're going to open up the arms like this

open close towards each other one hand will be open to the side close back to your Center Line two hands both open

close the sensation here imagine you've got some Play-Doh or some dough some kind of thing that you're stretching you don't want to stretch it so much that it snap and then you're going to release it back towards each other breathing out breathing in is open breathing out come back standing version breathing in breathing breing out

in just be absorbed by the rhythm of movement the breath filling your body the breath leaving your body having

Advantage looking great guys very

nice and a little change coming up one more of

these now as the hands come towards each other they're going The Palms are going to face down they're going to go towards the ground and they're going to come up again face each other go out come back towards each other come down seated version up Palms towards each other go out back towards each other down one handed verion up Palm in towards the center comes out comes back to the

center find your own

flow remember the most important thing the breath

looking really nice

guys one

more okay now we're going to change it I'm going to bring one of both hands

up now imagine you're at a football match and you're holding a scar or imagine you're the branches of a tree and you're going to sway from one side to the other could be one arm that's extended rather than both for swaying the

body Palms facing each other swaying in the breeze

or showing your teen scarf and a

match standing

up you're standing up and sitting Roots down with the feet think of yourself as a tree roots coming out of the soles of your feet securing you the trunk is strong the arms are the branches that are free moving in the Wind

looking great guys looking

great okay maybe if you're standing take a seat for the final B take your seat and when you st back down resume this movement again could be one

arm could be both arm

all right so we're going to make this movement a bigger Movement by circling so what we're going to do is as we Circle over we're going to fold the body over one leg drop a head down Circle it down across the flo to the other leg come back up to the sky you're tracing a circle up high over one leg coming down low over the other leg coming

up there's an option to do this standing it just might make you dizzy if you've not done it before so maybe try seated first of

all one more this

way remember that breath breathing in as you come up now we're going to change direction Circle the other way now breathing out as you come down over one leg when you get to the middle start breathing in again as you come up breathing out as you come down deep cening could be one arm verion one arm

extended by available to use imagine you're holding something like a ball maybe you picked up a big medicine

ball or cauldron let's keep it Halloweeny got cauldron and you're bringing it around up and down one more guys one more come up to the one more Circle

down and then when you get to the between your legs come up straight and then just hold your hands here just for a second if both hands available keep them both out if one arm is available keep that

out and then we're just we've stopped the movements on the outside but just close your eyes maybe you can still feel the Echoes of the movements we've been doing still dancing around inside you just notice

that then bring your hands back to hold on your stomach you might notice that your hands were warmer when you

started so that sensation of warmth is what the Chinese call

Chi just check in and we've stirred the glass of water need movement when you stir a glass of water it doesn't stop even when you stop stirring the water still spins round a little while before it comes for Sun and we're just going to let that happen inside us as we breathe deeply into our belly into that

balloon breathing

out

everything come

to a point of

still and then when you're ready put one of both hands over your eyes and then slowly open your eyes in the

darkness bring your hands

down okay

well done guys so that's the first little taster um should we take some questions or thoughts or comments now do you want to unmute yourselves and if you have any thoughts or questions let me know because we're going to have another go before we finish the session so we'll just take this a pause to check in and how find out how that works for people that was excellent you know when we are sing in a choir and there we when we warm up for choir we do a lot of this movements and when we breathe we've got to breathe into our bellies so I am I am used to breathing breathing into my belly um so and having the movements is so lovely

thank you you're very welcome it's interesting actually um I have some colleagues who do a lot of um um breath work through singing practices and they definitely have a similar foundation and the monks and the nuns in China when when they're not doing these practices they are singing the verses the Praises of their their own um sacred man uh uh scriptures so they sing the part of the day but definitely singing is very interconnected um with these practices

yeah another way to get into the flow I think to be in the flow of singing and the flow of music yeah I know quiet teacher she sort of like sometimes she'll that

a you know just away and she's done a couple of sessions with us as well it's like a meditation thing as well um so and we have to all you have our own version of oing and ooing and you know but it's it's it's great you know it makes us more um creative I think and I think the more creative you can be with your mind the more creative you can be with your body definitely wise words any other thoughts or

Reflections just lovely to feel so peaceful thoroughly that was lovely thank you we're all so busy at the minute and thinking about other things it was nice to be in that moment it was lovely yeah morning I've been feeling I mean my anxiety has been Skyhigh lately and I'm trying to manage my anxiety um but during this has really released the anxiety and like Alie said so calming you know really nice to hear for me too you know when um when I do um speciically doing things online that's more in my head so I'm going to be kind of doing stuff with Headway similar sessions in the future or I'll be talking about other topics are going to be more on my head if you the next time you see me in the New Year online I'll be talking about St I'll be more in my head less my body and then the first thing I'll do when that session finishes I'll go and do this um

and ideally I'll go do it in in close to some form of nature be a garden or a tree or something so you know you're you're backing your body you're inspired by Something Beautiful around you and so that kind of that sense of Peace relaxation has multiple layers Nature body movement the breath the mind it all kind of flows through you that's the idea that's what the monks and nuns are all about uh who created this stuff

yeah I'll take this opportunity to say a little bit about that actually um and you could can uh check out the link to the the um the video that I did kind an introduction about this to um like a key thing I think many brain injuries from what I've seen and working with survivors is that a brain injury can fragment and Splinter and leave people in pieces what what what can't happen is those pieces can't be sealed back together as if they've never been lit apart in the same way but what something like this can do if you imagine kind of leaves in a stream leaves are all individual pieces but the currents and flow of the stream

will move all the different pieces in one so breathing being in your body and moving in a way that's accessible to you kind of hold you together as one while you're doing this and not just you but we're all moving together um for those of you maybe could see that everyone was moving at the same time so we're like a sh of fish or a murmuration of Starlings we're all moving so the sense of being as one as a whole is beyond our individual bodies it's it's something bigger and then you know for those who who have spiritual beliefs you might find that this feels something that's like a transcendental or Transcendent experience it's something that gets you closer to something bigger than yourself whatever you believe that to be so this kind of Rhythm and the and the movement can hold things together which from what I understand is something that's such a rare experience um for anyone but after a brain injury um it's an opportunity to have the pieces being held as one again

did did anyone find any any of the movements that we did harder than the others or harder to follow or harder to do and let me know about your individual circumstances maybe one side isn't so good maybe balance is difficult maybe matching what you see to moving your body is difficult I I know with me on my right side um to try and to make my arms level I have to really think about you know because this always come there you know so and this right arm of mine got quite achy um and I felt I was almost having to hold my right arm you know instead of having my hands there I was actually holding my hand and say come on up you know but you know it's the way I try and do things you know yeah and actually doing on zoom and where you can actually see see yourself you know in the little picture at the top it's so good um because you can see whether you're square or not you know and it's like a mirror isn't it yeah it's a

mirror anyone else found some um a particular physical challenges to movement is it normal to feel quite tired after

taii that's a really interesting question um so it's normal to feel sleepy in a kind of cozy relaxed kind of way um and over time um people could find that once they've got used to doing something like this they can end up both with a cozy sleepiness but also feel quite energized as well but um it goes back to what we're saying about the physical stuff it may be that

um for a given person they need to do less so we've done you know we did about uh 25 minutes continuously just then now for some of you that might be you done for the session so relax chill back um but others of you you might feel like yeah I could do another another little bit and so we'll do another little bit but this is key don't push this if it feels like off exhausting and go back and let your body enjoy what you've done benefit from it probably feel good tomorrow next day if you feel you have a bit more to go then go for it um so I so I I do a regular session with the Different Strokes um charity every Monday on their Facebook page it's on their YouTube page and those sessions I do about half an hour so we would have done it that would be us done for the week see what I

mean so uh yeah so just just just be kind to yourself you say actually that's me I'm done and then just relax you can just watch the rest if you want and if you feel like it's a bit more it's fine but yeah definitely with physical abilities um or um energy you don't push this you let it just naturally find its own capacity thank you very much you're

welcome when we we did some research of a a taiichi group in an HS Community brain injy surface a couple weeks a couple years ago and that the everyone was saying who did that that they felt they did it every they did like um they did it every week for six months and at the end they were feeling both relaxed and energized at the same time um so so yeah so it's just it's something that can build over time but while um it should give you leave you more in your pot your energy pot to you throughout the week rather than depleting you if it's depleting you it probably means that you're doing too much of it and you need to scale it back now even just five minutes five minutes of just being still and breathing into your belly and it's a wonderful recharge it's a good exercise to try and dstress and Center yourself with all this Co that's going on you can switch off so

so there's um there's a particular um sequence of moves called the eight brades and it's been researched um in medical trials for use with stroke patients actually um and it's been found beneficial but the the very first group of patients who had covid in in China um were the doctors in China made them do this as part of their everyday on the ward so um they this is used to help the first group of people who had covid recover yeah pretty

interesting any more questions of us before we try a little bit

more

okay so what I thought we'd do just for the the the the last bit is we did lots of different movements then and we were enjoying the flow and and and that was really what I wanted to show you guys that kind of feeling of flow oh yeah please guys if you can um mute your microphones now for the last bit thank you just put the line back through the microphone that would be

great um where is we I wanted you guys to feel the flow of the movement and the breath there's quite Dynamic of a dynamic practice now I want us to find the connection between our call and the movement um we're going to do one thing now rather than lots of different things but we're going to do it deeply all right um so I would say for this maybe if everyone stays seated unless you have loads of energy and you want to stand but I would say it would be a nice time if you have been standing to do this seated just so that you feel kind of stable and secure in what you're doing all right so um we are going to

try we're going to do one um do a couple of things that links the arm to our belly so um people who haven't had a brain injury who in the general population who I teach taii and Kung Fu to here in Oxford um um struggle often with going to here they think they see a movement at the beginning they think it's about doing stuff with your arm or your legs and the discovery of taiichi is to find actually if you are moving your arms your legs it comes from the core this bit moves first and then it ripples out um and that's and people who aren't used to kind of being aware and inhabiting that inhabiting their bodies um just go about their mind their mind up here and you know that hands and legs flailing about in A hurried kind of rushed pace of life but haven't taken time

to be here be down here you know um and think about breath and for many of you that that awareness has been forced On You by having a brain injury by things in your body and your mind not working as they used to and so you've had to start that process of thinking about how does this stuff work where am I where is my body end my the the my mind begins and vice versa many people who haven't had a brain injury haven't had to think about this stuff so the whole process taii to start it's kind of like microwaving yourself start on the inside and works your way out it's a it's a challenging process for everyone actually but what it does mean is that if one bit of you like an arm or a hand or fingers on one side or the whole side of the way don't work they're not so responsive then start in the center and work your way out is um a different way to approach it than thinking about jumping to the edge like my hand or my fingers immediately

well to get from here to here we have to start a process of expanding out and so we try and do everything from here and let the ripples go out into movement so we got we're going to explore that in two ways all right so we're just going to work on um for those of you who did some sessions with me in the the Headway North Wales events last uh year you will have done this with me already so we're going to have a little go for those in you this is going to be treat this move is called Cloud hands I want you to take your preferred hand or the hand that's available to you have your other hand on your belly now the hand that's Avail to you I want you to just scoop it down across your

body and then bring it up and then bring it over your head maybe and then turn the hand out towards the camera

towards the computer or your phone towards me and then come down

again come up Circle it

up come

down I just get used to the circle movement

but we want to find the connection between here and the hand that's circling so we just don't want to jump our mind the hand as if it's floating around separate from our body so we're going to try and find a connection

here let's want to keep shoulders and elbows

relaxed and then we're going to try and find the movement from our core first of all so what do I mean by that so we're going to circle up once more and then we're going to let the body leave so as we come down think about your belly turning out to one side as it turns to the side it brings the arm with bit now think about straightening bringing your collar bones up so the collar bones extend the hand upward now I want you to round your shoulders round your back which has the act of pulling the hand back across your body and then sink down into your hips to bring the hand down turn the hips turn the belly to one side lift up at the collar bones lift up at the chest to bring the hand up round the shoulders bring the hand across sink down into your hips turn the belly to one side lift the stomach the chest the collar bone round the shoulders to bring it across so your arm is still moving but your trunk of your body is leading the movement

and the arm is more like a ripple of what your main trunk your body is

doing and let the belly button go to one side raise the stomach raise the chest raise the collar bone round the shoulder to bring the hands back around

down once

more down and relax all right just shake it

off and then let's try the other arm so if the other arm is available to you get it ready and maybe that this other arm if it's available to you is not your preferred arm so it's going to be a little different if the other arm is not available to you um I'm going to guide you through something else all right so if for those whove swapped arms I want you to Circle down the way crossing the other way circling up so you're going from outside crossing the valley to the other side Circle up it's going to feel weird it's going to feel different see it because it's not your preferred arm or be because of the impact of the brain injury just see what happens I want you to keep doing that for a little bit those of you the other arm is not responsive I want you to think about the center line you don't have the choice so this is going to be core ta Chi advanced practice where you start so this is where you need to start I want you to think about the stomach going down

across lifting the trunk up over down to making a circle down so the arm isn't responding but the core of the body is doing the same

movement that those with the extended armor doing and those of you who don't have the other arm extended are in the wiser position because you're not being distracted by the arm you're where you need to be in your coure so those of us for our arms out doing this let's find that connection sink the hips down turn the the belly button to the other side raise the trunk raise the collar bones round the shoulders to bring arm across think down turn lift lift the body round the shoulders bring your arm

across um one

more all right so this movement called Cloud hands is something that gets developed so you can move on to doing both hands at the same

time so you develop the movement and you can go on to be doing walking versions at the same time so the hands and the leg are moving and you can keep developing this so you can come

down have kicks PA of the movement I'm showing you this just to show you how taii can develop now the key thing about that is that as I do more and more things um I have to stay into this Flow State I have to stay in the breath I have to stay relaxed just in the movement the flow if I'm doing if I'm doing Cloud hands and I'm really thinking hard about it and then I'm going to do a big kick but it's really hard I can't B and this is not Tai Chi okay if I'm doing it I'm staying in the flow and my state of mind is as relaxed as you guys were talking about before and I just happen to be doing things in my body in a relaxed and graceful way I stay in that Serene say mind this is

taii okay and this is important because it's a very individual thing to find that right balance of movements that stimulate and exciting versus movements that um induce hardship um and take you away from a relaxed space okay all right we're going to try one more our last movement of the day and this is inspired by talk of people having pet snakes earlier on um that snakes are very important in Chinese martial arts and actually snakes are linked snake movements in the body is part of the martial art pracs are linked to a so it's a good time to be thinking about snakes um and they're linked to our lung Health which as someone said it's it's an important time to be looking after our mind looking after our lungs and respir ation in these weird and challenging times so we're going to try snake Chong practice

so and let me just get myself back there see right okay hands on your belly okay um and again if there's a better hand have the better hand on top saging in the not so good hand in the middle okay so we're going to again work on this connection between the bed and hand arms this kind of thing so first thing we're going to do is give ourselves a nice tummy massage so I want you just to Circle your hands pushing gently into your belly Circle it one

way nice and relaxed remember that breath remember the deep breath into your

belly nice Circle the one way

do change Circle the other

way

it you warn this might make you want to go to L if you need to go to Lou just go for it don't worry about uh the session okay so if that feels okay that's the hands moving now I want you to do the same circles but pushing your hands into your belly now it's the body that moves in a circle one way so it's not the hands moving it's the whole body moving as a unit circling One

Way breathing in circle breathing out

Circle and then Circle the other way the whole body Circle the other

way good now we're going to develop this Ripple outwards from our core as we did with the cloud h i want you to extend your preferred

arm that's available to you and have the other hand if you can on your stomach or just resting the sides and I want you bring your awareness back to the stomach we're just having our hands hanging out in the air don't worry about what it does just keep it there focus on the belly the trunk circling

around deep breath into your belly

have a hand that's extended think about the shoulder now and start Circle the shoulder in a way that ripples out from your belly the belly circles the shoulder

circles and if that feels possible that the belly and the shoulder are moving at the same time let's bring in the elbow of the extended hand extended hands descended extended elbow and the shoulder and the belly all

circling don't worry about which direction for now just find a

connection and then finally Circle the wrist bring your thumb and fingers together so it makes like a shape of a head and then wrist is circling the elbow is

circling shoulder is circling the stomach is circling but it's the stomach that's driving everything the stomach th rise the shoulder th rise the elbows

the

rest and bring it

down if the other arm is available to you just we'll do a few goes at the other arm just to balance it out if it's not available to you think about the trunk the shoulder circling okay so let's just go through Circle the

stomach Circle the shoulder of the other

arm Circle the elbow of the other

arm Circle the wrist of the other arm but if any point that doesn't work it's okay because most important bit is the belly Circle the belly breathe into the belly this is the taii arms do stuff as a ripple only we're focusing on the boulder the source of the ripples rather than

ripples great and bring it down and then just give yourself a shake let's just loosen ourselves up that is quite strong practice on arms and shoulders you want to roll your shoulders back forward

just loosen everything

up all righty well there we go that is the end of a second go of that and let's just check in again um that'll be all of the physical practice for a session we've just got time to check in each other before we wind up thank you all for being so brave and stepping out of your comfort zone and doing this with me today um you all looked amazing those of you who I could see and I'm H all of you gain something from this