About Tai Chi Exercises for Kids

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Bob Waers, and we are here at You Health Center today, and we are going to look at some exercises for kids. What we want to do is prepare them for tai chi later in life, and flexibility is a core issue here. One of the props that I use for kids, and my adult class as well is the flat plate. In the flat plate exercise you work on keeping your posture upright, your spine perpendicular to the ground, and get the sequence of movements down, which opens meridians, structures ligaments, and gets the kids involved, because typically they are going to drop the plate a few times so it becomes challenging to keep it up. And then you reverse that movement like this. It is a very good exercise, and then if you want you can check your stability by leaning from side to side, and keeping your feet rooted to the ground. Another core principle. Then you add the second plate, which kind of creates a little more of a difficulty. You rotate it underneath, bring them around, try to keep them flat. Occasionally we put ping pong balls on here to see how flat people keep their plates. And after you have done this a couple of times you reverse it. Add breath inhaling as you pull in, and exhaling as you go out. And this is one good way to get kids involved with some props, and prepare them for learning tai chi. Another thing that you want to do with kids is to teach them to move as far in any direction as they can keeping their feet solidly rooted to the ground. So it can become a great game of just movement, and how far can I go and not fall over. How much balance do I have, and keeping my feet perfectly connected to the ground. So the flexibility is important here, and that goes to rooting. Everything in tai chi is connected to the ground. So the kids get to check their rooting, as do the adults, and we will play this game in the adult class as well. How far can I go and still maintain foundation, and connection to the earth. Those are a couple of ways you can get kids prepared for tai chi. Thank you very much."