Tai Chi: Rolling the Joints

Video Transcript

"In this segment we're going to be talking about rolling and loosening the joints which is imperative for Tai Chi practice because this is where all our movement comes from and how the Chi can flow through the body. So as a warm-up we can begin with rolling the neck. And, when you do this rolling of the neck, what you want to do is to put your mind inside your spine and move from the perspective of the spine as opposed to the perspective of the muscle. You let your muscles totally relax. If the movement is small, it's small, if it's big, it's big, you move in both directions. Then you do the same with your shoulders. You move in perspective of the shoulder joint itself. So, we're moving the shoulder joint letting the shoulder muscles totally relax. We move the hip joint. And, when you move the hip joint, it's very important that you let the knees become very soft, not using any force. If you straighten your knees, your hips will lock. So the knees are very soft, letting the hip joint, as if we're swimming in water. With the ankle joint, you can pick the foot off the ground and roll the ankle, or you can touch with the toe and draw a circle with your ankle. So this is getting the ankle joint moving, and when you do this you want to really have your mind into your ankle. So then we can move up to the wrists. When you want to roll the wrist joint, you want to bring the hands together with the palms together. If you leave your palms out like this, the wrist joint won't roll. And you just want to be very relaxed, let the wrist joint roll throughout the movement. So this is rolling through all the joints."