Preparation and Commencement Form – Hé tài jí.
The first movement of the 108 tai chi form is opening to a shoulder width stance and putting peng jin, or warding off energy, into the elbows and arms.
The beginning of the Tai Chi form teaches the concepts of opening and closing. Here I am practicing loosely, just focusing on opening and closing, not too much on getting the form perfect. Opening and uniting is another translation. First, you open horizontally, everything opens then unites, second, you open and close vertically. These two techniques are very important, they teach you how to open and close with all parts of the body simultaneously. After the Tai Chi beginning form thing’s get complicated because in many of the postures one part is opening while another is closing.
Sorry about the music, I had to over-write the background music because YouTube was blocking it for copyright.
