Traditional Yang Tai Chi Chuan Demonstration & Instruction by Beverly Lui Wong (NTSC format)

Traditional Yang Tai Chi Chuan is probably one of the most comprehensive overviews of tai chi, China's famous meditative martial art, ever captured on camera. As well as showing the entire 81-move tai chi form from several angles, teacher Beverly Lui Wong gives a detailed, 30-minute introduction to tai chi, from its earliest history down the lineage of her teachers to the present day--in Chinese. Beginning students might feel a bit overwhelmed if they don't fast forward to the physical instructions. Advanced students and lovers of tradition, on the other hand, will want to hang on each subtitled gem of wisdom from Sifu Wong's vast store of knowledge. Unlike other instructional videos, this tape spends little time with esoteric visualizations. Instead, students are given basic instruction on how each movement should look, how they should feel, how the same simple principles apply to many different movements, and how each move flows smoothly from what came before into what comes next. The whole form is executed step by step from various camera angles, each with a helpful narrator and a ballroom dance-style directional diagram set into one corner of the screen. Simply watching the video from beginning to end might not make you a tai chi master, but it will certainly make you a better student. Follow along, and there's no telling what you might accomplish. --Grant Balfour

- Amazon