Tai Chi: Standing Like a Post

Video Transcript

In this segment I'm going to be talking about the physical alignment of Zhan Zhuang, or standing like a post. This is one of the only things every single one of my teachers has taught me. A very important idea to master within the practice of Tai Chi. When we begin, we want to make sure that our toes are parallel, facing directly forward. Not having them splayed out or turned in. The knees we want to be, let go, very soft and relaxed. Without feeling as if there's pressure on them. The way to do that is to sit the hips down and pull them back slightly. If the pelvis turns under and too much, then pressure goes into the knee. So we want to have a feeling like we're sitting on a large ball. As we sit on that ball, it pushes the knees outward a little bit. This is very, very important. We want the shoulders and the hips in vertical alignment. So we neither want it tilting forward, nor tilting back. The back of the neck we want to feel as if it's pushing back against the collar without lifting the chin. Just taking the whole neck and pulling it straight back. The tip of the tongue lightly touches the roof of the mouth. The arms are raised in front as if holding a ball. We want to make sure that it's horizontal to the ground as apposed to one arm higher or lower. The tips of the fingers pointing at each other, the palms facing directly at the chest, with the shoulders and elbows relaxed.

Watch these related videos

• 
  Tai Chi: Standing Like a Post

  playlist Views: 1,427

• 
  Tai Chi: Standing Meditation

  playlist Views: 1,364

• 
  Tai Chi: Rolling the Joints

  playlist Views: 434

• 
  Beginning Tai Chi

  playlist Views: 715

• 
  Tai Chi: Joint Rolling

  playlist Views: 605

• 
  Sitting Alignment in Hatha Yoga

  playlist Views: 603

Community Members who...

• Favorited this Video
• Rated This Video

Thumbs up or Thumbs down? Be the first to rate this video!

Top Tags