Tai Chi: Squats & Rabbit Hops

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Part of the video series: Tai Chi Stretching

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Tai Chi: Waist Turning Exercise

Summary: Squats and rabbit hops are effective exercises, in Tai Chi, for conditioning the body and loosening the hip muscles. Learn to perform squats and rabbit hops from a professional Tai Chi instructor in this free martial arts video.

Views: 338 | Tags: martial, arts, tai, chi, positions, kung, fu, chuan, stretching, movements, motions

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About the Expert
Contact: greenmountaintaichi.com

Rich Marantz Rich Marantz is the director and instructor of Green Mountain Tai Chi in Manchester, Vermont. He has taken his passion for Taoist philosophy and Chinese inter... read more

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Video Transcript

Tai Chi: Squats & Rabbit Hops

In this segment I'm going to talk about a conditioning exercise that is, probably one of the more difficult ones to do, but also equally one of the most effective ones to help our Tai Chi practice. So the first one is squats. You can do this with the hands in front, to keep you nice and straight. If you need to, you do this against the wall, to keep your back straight. The feet are about shoulder width apart, toes pointing straight. What you want to do is just drop, sink straight down, straight down, straight down. But if you see, I'm looking right at you, squatting down. Now what's important here is as I come up, to not push my butt back, and push my upper body forward. What I want to do here is to just push straight up, lifting my hips, straight up. So I come straight down, sinking straight down, straight down, straight down; again you go as low as what's right for you. And then, I lift myself straight up, straight up, straight up, so I have a sense that my pelvis is being pulled underneath me. Once you get a sense of doing this, and you build some strength in your legs, you can then do what's called rabbit hops. You bring your hands behind you, you squat down, and then from this down position, you jump, you push yourself up, and jump. What's very important here is, don't stop yourself from going down, this will jar your body in a really uncomfortable way, and not give you the full benefit. So I'm just going to do it slightly so you can see what I mean. So coming down, if I jump up, and then stop like this, that's going to jar my body. What I want to do is, up, and then straight back down again.