Firedance Tai Chi
Steven Barnes teaches Tai Chi through the Firedance system, focusing on breathing and hip movement rather than hands. He walks through named forms like Seven Star, Single Whip, and Cloud Hands with weight-shift cues, and recommends learning a few minutes at a time without pushing too hard.
Chapters
Dance Tai Chi video Fire dance is an overall technology of body and mind, and the Tai Chi is used as a physical metaphor. It is also used as a way of teaching breathing and posture and energy generation techniques. Now, when you practice along with the videotape, I would suggest that you concentrate your attention on the hip and leg movement. Don't worry so much about what the hands are doing. Trying to learn Tai Chi by following the hands is like trying to count the trees in a forest by counting the leaves and dividing by a thousand. So just concentrate on the hips.
You're going to be concentrating on your.
Breathing and on relaxing as much as possible. And I'll be coaching you along as you go. It's also advisable that you watch the entire tape before you really try to start learning. Just learn a few minutes at a time. Enjoy yourself. Have fun with it.
Relax.
Don't push too hard. You'll overload yourself and get frustrated. The Tai Chi fits in with a number of other technologies that we teach in the life writing system and in the fire dance system. Energy by itself can be unfocused. And you need to have a place to use that energy in your life, a way to direct it. On the other hand, direction and focus in life is useless without the energy to empower it. So all these things fit together very neatly. If you'd like to focus, find out more about these things. Please get in touch with us. We have a lot of things we'd like to offer you and we'd like to show you. That's all I want to say right now. What I want to do now is to start breaking down the form so you have the opportunity to learn how the individual pieces of it fit together.
Thank you. The single most important thing to remember about Tai Chi is that the entire thing is just a breathing exercise. Nothing more than breathing. What you want to do is you want to keep a very slight muscle lock in three different places. Your anal sphincter, a slight contraction. You want to keep the lower abdominal muscles slightly tucked in and the butt slightly tucked under. And you want to keep a little sense of tension in the throat so that the breathing hisses just a little bit so you can feel the control, so that there's a little bit of tension on the breathing through the entire midsection. Okay? Your head should feel as if it is suspended by a string from above. Spine straight. Your heels should start with your approximately 1 fist distance apart, so they're fairly close together. Balanced weight on the inside edge of your feet. Relax. Shoulders chin level. With the ground and begin rising hands. Hands come up to about the height of the shoulders. Roll. Press down. Bend the knees. Step forward onto the heel. Turn the toes in. Shift the weight forward. Transfer all the weight to the left foot. Turn on the heel of the right foot. Turn from the hips. Shoulder forward. Turn the hips. Straighten the front leg. Break at the hips. Push to the corner. Single whip open to about a shoulder and a half distance turn. Straighten the right leg. Transfer all the weight to the left. Step forward with the right shoulder forward. Turn the hips. White crane spreads the wings. On this movement. If there's any problem with your back, just make a smaller motion. Hold the baby. Seven star. 70% of your weight is on the right. 30% is on your left. These two fingers touch the pulse point on the left wrist. Brush knee twist. Step one, Two. Step forward. Repeat on this side. Turn from the hips. Remember, step forward again. Repeat back to seven star. Okay, the next movement is called Play Guitar from the seven star position. Cut. Turn the palms down. Push forward and come up. Let's pretend that this is 12 o'. Clock. This is nine. This is three. And this is six. You're now facing nine o'.
Clock.
Back to seven star. Okay, Reverse punch. Under punch, apparently closing up. Make sure to keep that abdominal muscle slow, slightly locked. A little bit of tension on the anal sphincter. This movement is if you're getting underneath something and lifting it up. Now you're doing seven star to the corner. You're facing about 10 o'. Clock. My brush knee twist up to the corner. You're going to go pigeon toed. Come all the way around. Seven star. Push diagonal single whip. Transferring the weight over to the left. Step around with the right. Hit the fist against the palm. You come back. Okay, so you're going to start from here. Repulse the monkey. Repulse the monkey. Okay, so you do it once on that side, once on the right side, again on the left side. And twist. Step out so that the line between the right foot and the left foot makes sort of a T formation. Pushing movement is called slanted flying. Lean forward, shoulder forward. Push forward with the shoulder. Twist the hips up again. And another. White crane spreads the wings. And another. Hold the baby. Back here to seven Star. Brush knee twist step. This movement is called Find the needle at the bottom of the Sea. Straighten the right leg. Bring the right arm up to the left palm. Come in pigeon toed. Slide the right foot back. Expand through the back. Now the weight's back on the left. Transfer the right foot over slightly so that you're facing 3 o'.
Clock.
Back knuckle. And you step back. Reverse punch under punch and step forward. Push to the corner. This movement is called Catch the Bird's tail and single whip. Now the movement following single whip is called Cloud Hands. You're going to repeat it three times. Two, Three. And then another single whip. The next part that's coming up is probably the most difficult part of the entire form. So watch it a few times before you try to do it. High pad on horse and split the horse. Split the kick to this. Take another look at that. High pat on horse. Split the horse and split the kick. You end up facing this corner. Okay, let's go right through that from the beginning. And you repeat this right here. Cross the leg over to the front kick and drop the leg behind. Cross the hands and spin. Now you're facing three o'. Clock. Kick with the left. Brush knee to a step. Brush knee, twist, Step brush knee, low punch. Straighten the left leg. Turn around. Okay, let's take a look at everything up until then and I will start facing the opposite direction. Okay. And back from here again. Brush knee, twist. Step, brush knee, twist, step, brush knee. Low punch. Turn back fist high. Pet on horse. Split the horse. Drop the leg back. Left hand on top, right hand on top. Pull the left foot back. This movement is called Fighting the Tiger. Okay, so let's take a look at that again here. And you'll end up facing this direction. So last time through. It. Double fingers, double palm. Double punch kick. Drop it to the front. Turn, kick, back fist, reverse punch. Under punch. Apparently closing up. Embrace tiger. Return to mountain. Seven Star to the corner. Seven Star, turn around. Alright, you're going to adjust your feet. Facing 3 o'. Clock. Split the horse, split the horse. Step forward. Split the horse, step forward. Split the horse, split the horse, step forward. Fair lady work Shuttles. Move from the hips, Touch your ribs, touch your shoulders. Pigeon toes start coming around. Fair lady works Shuttles and split the horse and step forward. Fair lady works Shuttles. Touch the ribs, touch the shoulders. Fair lady works shuttles. Push to the corner. Single whip. Cloud hands. Again. One, Two, 3. And single whip. Next movement is called Snake Creeps down. It comes all the way down here. If you have any limitations in your movement at all, you would just come down this far or whatever feels comfortable for you. Golden Cock stands on one leg. Fingertips repulse the monkey. Repulse the monkey. Repulse the monkey. Twist, step, step back. This time, shoulder forward. Turn the hips and White crane spreads the wings hold the baby. Seven star. Fresh knee. Twist step.
Find a needle at the bottom of.
The C. Fan through the back. Back knuckle. And this time you step forward. Reverse punch. Under punch. And single whip again. Last cloud. Hands 1. 1, 2, Three. High pat on horse. Palm to the face. Single lotus kick. Punch. Step through. Palm to the corner. Single whip. Another snake creeps down. Come up into cat stance. Reverse cat stance. Kick to the corner. Turn. Palm to the face. Double lotus kick. This time you're going to be touching the foot with both hands. Come around. Double punch. Palm to the face. Palm back. Fist high pad on horse. Step through with the shoulder. Palm to the corner. Catch the bird's tail. Single whip. Point to the corner. Point to the left corner. Bring the feet together and the hands together. Closing the Tai chi. Thank you.
