Tai Chi Chuan Beginners

Beginners-Intermediate Classes

8-weeks Beginners course:
Live sessions in West Ealing

This 8-weeks course is an ideal start for people who have never done Tai Chi before and like to explore it for two months. Or for people who have done some Tai Chi, and now would like to learn the Shaolin style.
The course allows you to practice basic moves and develop an understanding of the principles of Tai Chi Chuan. After the course, you may join our advanced sessions. Even if you stop after the course, you will still have benefited, as you will have learned how to relax and balance yourself. Making Tai Chi useful for your everyday life is the core purpose of our teaching (read more about: Benefits).

When: Mondays 12.45-1.45pm
Where: West Ealing (All about Exercise studio, near Sainsbury's)
Dates: Runs twice a year (spring and autumn) Next course starts: 21st February, 2022. Dates are: 21 and 28 Feb: 7, 14, 21 and 28 March; 4 and 11 April (note; the last two Mondays are in the Easter holiday; if too many students are away, we will continue after the holidays).
Costs: £88 for 8 classes (60 min lessons). Pay-in-advance (no refund for missed sessions, unless you let Andrea know before the course starts).

8-weeks Beginners course:
On Zoom

Similar content as the live class, but the sequences are simplified and geared to be practiced on Zoom. After the course, you may join our advanced Zoom sessions.

When: Mondays 6-7pm
Dates: Runs twice a year (spring and autumn) Next course starts: 21st February, 2022. Dates are: 21 and 28 Feb: 7, 14, 21 and 28 March; 4 and 11 April (note; the last two Mondays are in the Easter holiday; if too many students are away, we will continue after the holidays).
Costs: £72, pay-in-advance (no refund for missed sessions, unless you let Andrea know before the course starts).

We teach in a way that everybody can learn it!

Many people shy away from Tai Chi, as they feel they cannot learn the flowing sequences. No worry: We take each sequence apart, and repeat the single moves many times. Once you can do single moves, we put them together and make them flow. And if you feel under pressure about "memorising" moves; relax! It is O.K. to just copy the teacher, even after many years of training - you still get the full benefits of Tai Chi.

More info/sign-up

Ongoing Class (Thursday evenings)

Mixed level class - beginners are always welcome. This is a friendly group of people who work in a focused way, and also like to have a good laugh. You can start this class any time.

As this class only started in autumn 2021, there will be mostly beginners for the next few months. Once we have people at different levels, we do a warm-up and some basic training together, and then work in break-out groups, supported by our assistant teachers.
Content:

Warm-up (Chi Gung, stretches, basic stances and moves)
Short sequences and longer forms: Tai Chi Tong Long, Shaolin animal styles, Chi Gung form
'Free-style' Tai Chi
Partner work and applications. Tai Chi Push hands
Breathing and mindfulness exercises; Chi Gung moving meditation
Tai Chi principles (Yin and Yang, how to relax through Tai Chi, how to apply Tai Chi to your everyday life)

When: Thursday evenings (6.45-7.45pm)
Date: Ongoing, beginners always welcome (we do a shared warmup and basic exercises, and then make breakout groups per level)
Where: All about Exercise Studio, West Ealing (above Sainsbury's)
Cost: £13 for drop-in, or £45 for 4 classes paid-in-advance (if you pre-pay, the classes have to be taken in a row, unless you let me know at the time of payment, non-refundable for missed classes)

More info/sign-up

The joy of Tai Chi: Benefits

Tai Chi has a variety of mental, physical, and social-emotional benefits. Its core goal is creating balance; your inner calm is good for your health, and will positively influence your life and relationships. After some months of training, you will feel stronger, more relaxed, focused and self-confident. Scroll down to read more, or go to our dedicated the Benefits of Tai Chi page.

What is Shaolin Tai Chi?

Tai Chi Chuan creates and balances inner energy (called Chi) through gentle, flowing movements. It has mental, emotional and physical benefits, as it fosters stress release, agility, balance, self-confidence, memory, mindfulness etc.

Originally, Tai Chi Chuan is an ancient Chinese martial art, and this connection still shines through a bit in our Shaolin style of Tai Chi. Every single move in our system has a health and a self defence application. For example, lifting your arms in a certain way may strengthen some muscles and massage the glands. At the same time, it also could serve as a blocking motion for an incoming strike. We will talk about these self-defence applications on occasion, but our focus is on the health benefits and life lessons. The core goal is always building and balancing your energy (and enjoy your training, of course). Read more

The benefits of Tai Chi

Tai Chi has physical and mental benefits. It is also great fun, as we are a friendly group who likes a good laugh. We work hard, but we do not take ourselves too seriously. Some examples of benefits:

Tai Chi makes you stronger and helps you find your balance, both in a physical and an emotional way.
Through the training, you can increase your agility and coordination, linking your right and your left brain. This is also good for your memory, your mental alertness and intuition.
Tai Chi boosts your metabolism and can help you re-tune yourself regarding healthy eating habits. It also supports the circulatory, cardiovascular and immune system and detoxifies the organ system of the body.
On a more emotional level, Tai Chi helps with your self-confidence, joy of life, and mental health. It calms you down when you feel stressed and it helps you let go of worries or tensions.

Read more on our dedicated benefits & testimonials page):

The energy teachings of Tai Chi

When working with 'Chi' - inner energy - we select specific moves and sequences for you that enable you to:

raise your energy or calm it down
explore where you give your energy away and how you can take it back
guard and protect your space in a peaceful manner
balance and harmonise 'Chi' in all your body parts, your mind and your emotions
explore Yin and Yang aspects of energy, which allow you to shift from a hard and fast way of problem solving to a soft and flowing approach. This is useful for situations where you feel stuck or caught up in a conflict.
learn how to shift your emotions (using Shaolin animal styles). For example, you can shift from feeling like a focused, assertive Cobra to being a playful Butterfly (or the other way round).
energise the space around you; Tai Chi moves can revive stale rooms
learn more about yourself by visiting the place of your deepest essence - somewhere in between all energies...

Thelma attended the Beginners'course 2019. Here is her experience:

"The Beginner's Course is excellent. Andrea is a great teacher, very patient and always willing to explain things and repeat the movements more slowly if one needs this.
To have the connection with martial arts explained is a useful insight. It was novel to me to work with a partner as this was not done in another Tai Chi course, I did some years ago.
Having now moved from the beginners course to the regular class, I have experienced the more senior members as friendly, helpful and encouraging.
If a set of movements is challenging, I write down the process in my own words and then regularly visualise myself doing the moves, as well as doing them as often as possible. This helps me fix them in my mind and in time they become more fluid.
I would highly recommend this course to anyone wishing to take up Tai Chi Chuan. It allows you to forget about everything else for the duration of the class and I find I am more relaxed in mind and more energised in body afterwards."

More testimonials

Covid-19 Safety

We follow government guidelines and we treat each other with respect.
Before joining, students will be asked to read the Covid guidelines and sign a declaration.
Participants will be asked not to come to the studio if they have Covid-19 symptoms or are supposed to self-isolate for any reasons.
We will train at the required 'social distance'. The large studio space and the limited numbers of participants will make this possible. We also keep the windows open, so please dress in warm clothes/layers.
Currently, there is no government rule that makes face coverings mandatory for indoor training ; so feel free to train without a mask. Participants who would like to wear a face covering are welcome to do this. Everybody shall feel fully accepted and safe in our group.