Tai Chi: Wave Hands Like Clouds

Video Transcript

"In this segment and the next one I'm going to talk about and teach you about wave hands like cloud. This is probably one of the, what I would consider, signature movement of tai chi. And in my opinion one of the most beneficial for our health. If we start with the one hand out to the side, you want to shift your weight to the opposite leg,turn your waist, just let that arm come down very gently as if you were scooping water in front of you. Pick the hand up, now shift the weight to the opposite leg turn your waist and watch the hand come across the face, like watching a cloud go across the sky. Now this is the important part here, that you let the hand go away from you as if letting that cloud go right on by. So you drop your hand, shifting the weight, turning the waist scooping the water, picking it up, keep the elbow down as opposed to rising the elbow up. Watch the hand and then rotate the hand and let it go right on by. You want to shift your weight and one of the common errors here is to turn too far, so you only want to turn about forty five degrees. If I turn ninety degrees it puts a lot of strain in the outside of my knee."