Comments on: Tai Chi for Beginners

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:33:23 +0000

I bought this DVD to engage my 92 year old mother in some simple, introductory exercise. I have done Tai Chi in the past and thought she’d enjoy it. Paul Lam’s style involves visual example and verbal description, and the older participants he uses were good for her to identify with. However, even on the first viewing the amount of dialogue made it difficult to deal with, left my mother & I standing and waiting impatiently for him to move on to the next pose. Since with DVD you can’t fast-forward past the dialogue, it would have been better to demonstrate the moves without so much discussion before going on to putting the sequences together.
Rating: 2 / 5

By: Richard Almasi

Richard Almasi — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 02:58:18 +0000

This is the second dvd I've bought of Dr.Lam's Tai Chi exercises, and by the looks of things it will not be my last.

This DVD is ideal for anyone learning from home, if you have space available to move around in that is, at least 16x7 feet or 6x2 meters.
The way he describes and presents things makes you feel like you were right there, in person, in his class.

Many of us have come across supposedly self-instructional dvd's/tapes before, only to be disappointed when they only show you things but do not explain things intelligibly for "normal" human beings.
This DVD is different, it instructs you, and Dr.Lam describes all the movements and guides you through them.

The first 17 minutes or so consists of warm-ups and stretches, DR.Lam goes through all them in detail and you do them together with his class.
These stretches are designed for Tai Chi so they are not the regular gym-class type of thing, it was interesting doing them.
Then there's an introduction to Qigong with a number of postures or arm movements coordinated with breathing.

After this is a set of foundational movements, i.e. essential Tai Chi footwork and hand movements. He guides you through all of them in detail and you see many examples of it. They don't take up much space and you can easily do them in your room.

The final section covers a Tai Chi beginners set. This basic form is split up into several more manageable parts, so you learn it part-by-part, you see the form from the front as well as from the back - your perspective.
This form requires quite alot of space, at least 16x7 feet or 6x2 meters. I don't have this much space available myself and so I just do the individual parts by themselves in the space I have, works for me.

So if you have the space, this is a good DVD to learn some Tai Chi from. Rating: 5 / 5

By: tojosha

tojosha — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:50:31 +0000

The video arrived very quickly and in superb condition. I am very satisfied with the seller’s promptness and quality of their product.

Rating: 5 / 5

By: Leo Jim Baumer

Leo Jim Baumer — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:02:24 +0000

I was so let down by this DVD that I almost gave up on Tai Chi. Why they chose a cast of people that were all over 50 is beyond me. I guess it’s to appeal to that demographic. Paul Lam speaks too slowly and the group of seniors (to whom I mean no disrespect) move akwardly, out of sync, and barely stay ‘true-to-form’. I would HIGHLY recommend that anyone who can stand up on their two feet at a moment’s notice and walk up and down stairs without help should look into Kathy Smith’s DVD. For those of you who are finding it hard to gain mobility – this is the DVD for you. I did not mean to offend so forgive me if I’ve been rude.
Rating: 1 / 5

By: Don

Don — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:10:30 +0000

When I’ve bought the DVD, I was thinking about learning Tai Chi. The training has too much dialogue and I was thinking about learning the 24 forms; the problem is the DVD only teaches the 6 moves needed to learn Tai Chi and 3-4 Qi-Gong moves. This DVD is ideal for someone who wants to pay a DVD more than 30$ for nothiWhen I’ve bought the DVD, I was thinking about learning Tai Chi. The training has too much dialogue and I was thinking about learning the 24 forms; the problem is the DVD only teaches the 6 moves needed to learn Tai Chi and 3-4 Qi-Gong moves. This DVD is ideal for someone who wants to pay a DVD more than 30$ for nothing. I really don’t recommend it.
Rating: 1 / 5