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The Peaceful Dragon Daily Warm-Up Routine
All new students need to read this before starting tai chi or kungfu classes!
General Introduction
In all of the martial arts classes taught at The Peaceful Dragon (both
tai chi/internal arts and shaolin/shuai chiao kung fu), we do a
standardized 30-minute warm-up and conditioning routine. The routine
consists of a variety of carefully selected stretching, strengthening,
and chi (energy) building exercises to provide you with the
traditional body development needed to get the most out of the arts
you are training in.
When you start your first class simply relax, follow along and copy
the movements to the best of your ability. As a beginning student you
may find some or all of the warm-up routine to be challenging - and
for some of you quite challenging. Do not be concerned or discouraged
if this is the case! Instead, rejoice because soon you will be amazed
at the improvements to your health, fitness and vitality you are
making. Age, health, previous levels of exercise and many other
factors will impact your abilities so don't worry about or compare
yourself with the person next to you—only focus on your own steady
progress. Pace yourself with the warm-ups (and everything else in
class) and don't try to do too much too soon.
We highly recommend that you attend—as soon as possible—at least
a couple of the Tutoring classes offered to new students. At these
classes the instructors will give details on how to do the warm-up
exercises correctly and they can show you modifications for any of the
exercises that you can't do due to injuries or other physical
limitations. If your schedule doesn't allow you to make any of the
Tutoring classes, please make arrangements with our manager, George
Lu, to schedule a free private class to review the warm-ups.
Why Are Tai Chi Students Doing These Warm-Ups?
Some new tai chi students find this more vigorous warm-up and
conditioning routine disconcerting, thinking that tai chi is comprised
only of slow-motion and gentle movement. As you'll discover, the
slow-motion and gentle movements are an important part of tai chi, but
there is much more to tai chi. The slow movements of tai chi won't
benefit you as effectively if you're not also developing a minimal
level of "tai chi fitness." During the many centuries that tai chi
evolved in China virtually all people were quite physically fit. Most
people did rigorous manual farm labor and those that didn't still did
a great deal more physical work than most of us today. Even with the
high general level of fitness in those days, the traditional tai chi
curriculum still required many exercises for building internal
strength, endurance and flexibility.
All of the exercises in our warm-up and conditioning routine come from
the traditional tai chi curriculum, and they'll help you tremendously
in your practice of tai chi. If, however, you physically or for any
other reason cannot do the routine that's okay. During the routine
you can instead do qigong or other alternatives. Again, at the
Tutoring classes you can learn more about those alternatives.
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About the Warm-up and Conditioning Routine
Our routine takes approximately the first 30 minutes of each class.
You should only do the routine once a day, so if you take both kungfu
and tai chi classes on the same day you'll do the routine in your
first class only. For the next class those who have already done the
routine will move right into other things while those who haven't will
start the routine.
The routine is broken down into four parts: The first part is
literally a warming-up set that serves to loosen up and heat up the
body. The second part is a power set which serves to build internal
power and strength. The third part is a stretching set designed to
develop greater flexibility of the muscles, joints and connective
tissue of the body. The fourth and final part is breathing qigong to
relax and gather chi.
We rotate the "count" for the routine among all the students in the
class, starting with the front row. When it gets to be your turn in
the back row of course you won't know the exercise since you're a new
student - but the students next to you will help guide you. Before
long you'll have the whole routine memorized. Until then, as an aid
for you the warm-up and conditioning routine is listed below.
The Daily Warm-up and Conditioning Routine
Warm-ups
- Circle hips 10x
- Circle knees 10x
- Circle body 10x
- Elbow to toes 10x
- Pendulum leg stretch 10x
- Side leg stretch 10x
- Outside wheel kick 10x
- Lying leg stretch 10x
- Front/side combination kick 10x
- Back kick 10x
Standing relaxation 1 minute
Power Set
- Raise & lower palms 50x
- Cat stretches forward 10x
- Cat stretches backward 10x
- Cross-legged roll backs 20x
- Back arches 10x
Lying down relaxation 1 minute
Stretching Set
- Side split holding ankles 1 minute
- Sit back, lean to left then right 1 minute each
- Head to left then right toe 1 minute each
- Lean forward 1 minute
- Front split left then right 1 minute each
Circling arms chi kung 10x
Approximate Total Time:30 minutes
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