Hibernating Bear Tai Chi

Movement & stillness for all abilities

Moving gracefully with your baseline

As a Tai Chi, Qigong and meditation instructor, I have distilled my studies and practice of the Classical Chinese movement and stillness arts over the last 20 years, to pass on the most effective methods for improving health and wellbeing. I work with everyday folk privately online, through our Patreon community, and via video classes, to guide them towards an alternative and natural route to self manage chronic health, pain, fatigue, the demands of modern life and the aging process. At any age and ability you can improve your quality of life through regular mindful exercise, breathwork and relaxation techniques. For the chronic health spoonies out there, it is possible to improve your capacity to cope and build resilience too! Join me on the Hibernating Bear Tai Chi programme and learn how you can move gracefully with your baseline.

How to aid the symptoms of chronic fatigue with movement and stillness. Explore why Tai Chi and Qigong are so helpful when living with fatigue. Introducing techniques for mind and body to lessen fatigue levels. (55 mins)

Exploring the benefits of appropriate and gentle exercise when living with chronic pain. Using Tai Chi, Qigong, repetition, body awareness, breath work, and relaxation techniques to soften, manage and reframe chronic pain.
(1 hour 2 mins)

Learning to naturally lengthen through the body. Exploring the connection between pain and stretching. Learn to re-educate your movement patterns to release physical tension & help reduce pain levels. (25 mins)

How you hold yourself matters. A poor posture can lead to pain, tension, sprains, fatigue, headaches, arthritis, degenerative discs / joints, damaged nerves, and at worst irreversible damage. Learn how to align your posture and take time each day to train your body to hold itself efficiently, as this will help lessen muscle pain and fatigue over time.  (57 mins)

ALIGNMENT / STRUCTURE / COORDINATION / HOW TO MOVE

Connecting the hip, knee, ankle and foot in Tai Chi and Qigong. The knee joint can get exploited and move out of a good alignment very easily. Learn how the hips govern the knee position helping you develop integrated body movements. (58 mins)

A further video to continue exploring the hip, knee, ankle and foot connection in Tai Chi and Qigong. Learn how to stabilise the knees by using the hips. Including a seated relaxation session at the end. (1 hour 2 mins)

Soma Dao Qigong movements to explore well aligned waist, torso and spine rotations.  (46 mins)

Strengthening the muscles through Qigong movements. Learning to move the whole body from the pocket muscles.  (40 mins)

Learn the expand and compress principle to mobilise and lubricate the joints whilst balancing the muscles and tendons.  (43 mins)

Continuing to explore the expand / open and compress / close principle in Tai Chi and Qigong movements.  (52 mins)

How to raise and lower the arms in softness with good shoulder alignment and appropriate muscle use. To not exploit the shoulder muscles, instead to nourish and release tension. (52 mins)

Exploring shoulder health in Tai Chi and Qigong movements. Applying the principles learnt from last lesson. (1 hour)

BREATHWORK

A foundation breathwork technique, the abdominal or rest breath. (10 mins)

From natural breathing, we progress onto reverse breathing. Also known as the energetic breath, the active breath or the Taoist breath. (7 mins)

Develop full torso breathwork. (14 mins)

Come into a deeper sense of listening, as you breathe through the body with gentle awareness. (9 mins)

Bring awareness to how you breathe. Learn how to connect the diaphragm through focused breath work. (53 mins)

Training to soften within adversity. Use this whole body scanning technique to soften through every part of your body from your head to your fingers and toes. (22 mins)

RELAXATION / STATE SHIFTING / FLOW STATE / MEDITATION / MINDFULNESS

Learn to listen inwardly, develop presence & sensitivity, and ground through movement and breathwork. The skill of finding your way back into the body, with awareness of your structure, breath and state. (51 mins)

Exploring healthy soft tissue in Tai Chi and Qigong movements. With gentle and powerful spiralling qualities that help whole body pliability, soft tissue elasticity, lengthening the connective tissue, releasing the fascia, and helping to soften muscles and release physical tension.  (1 hour)

Tai Chi and Qigong to loosen tension and unbind holdings through spiralling and relaxed movements. Without becoming to soft with noodle limbs and a collapsed body.  (51 mins)

Slow movement, breathwork and seated awareness meditation to bring your body down from that heightened state of stress, anxiousness, and hyper vigilance, into a neutral mind and body. To soothe the central nervous system. (58 mins)

Exploring Fang Song / conscious relaxation within mindfulness and meditation. This lesson is part gentle movement and part soft meditation practice. Bringing the mind to a single point of focus to calm, ground and release.  (57 mins)

The absence of resistance, known as the water method. A deep physical release explored through seated meditation and Tai Chi and Qigong movements.  (59 mins)

The mind and body connection: how the body leads the mind and the mind leads the body. How to trick your central nervous system into relaxation. (57 mins)

A way to be more self compassionate in your movements, sensing in, and interactions. Not reaching with force for a goal or a result. Playing with being subtle. (40 mins)

Focusing on loosening the shoulders and neck. A short follow along in silence lesson with the option of listening to soft piano and bird song. For you to flow and enjoy.  (30 mins)

Follow along with this nourishing Taoist practice. (15 mins)

SEATED COLLECTION

Seated Soma Dao Qigong movements. For a more restful and meditative state.  (1 hour 3 mins)

Seated Tai Chi silk reeling exercises focusing on turning the waist, a good alignment and structure, and spiralling the arms. (56 mins)

Seated Soma Dao Qigong movements to follow the ebb and flow of chronic health. (40 mins)

Seated eight pieces of brocade / Ba Duan Jin Qigong routine. (46 mins)

Seated five animals Qigong routine, with detailed instruction and form performance.  (1 hour 56 mins)

HEALTH & WELLBEING

Exploring cross lateral movements and left to right brain connectivity to help our neural pathways stay strong. Movements where the four limbs all do different things, with differing speeds, pace, timing, shape and coordination. A must for life long brain health. (58 mins)

Attentions spans are very short these days, as modern life is all about shorts, from headlines, stories, to memes. In Qigong and Tai Chi the movements require constant focus. This lesson helps improve clarity and focus whilst down regulating from over stimulation.  (28 mins)

Training the skills of balance, stability and standing on one leg. (55 mins)

How to improve lymph system function through exercise and breathwork.  (54 mins)

Soma Dao Qigong movements for spine health. Learn how to mobilise, soften and lengthen the spine. (1 hour 9 mins)

Exploring Soma Dao Qigong movements that ground, replenish and release, a time to let go of the old. Helping us reset our central nervous system. (52 mins)

Using the internal power of torso rotations, spirals and tortion to give a massage to the digestive system. Perform this after lunch to help reduce bloating, discomfort and support the symptoms of IBS.  (40 mins)

Supporting mental health in movement and stillness. Exploring the happy brain chemicals of serotonin, dopamine and endorphins.  (47 mins)

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Hibernating Bear Tai Chi - Health Resources