Learn the art of Tai Chi in this three-part course for beginners. Tai Chi is known as an internal or soft martial art, but this course will focus on its health benefits. There are five styles of Tai Chi Chen, Yang, Woo, Wu/Hao and Sun styles. This course will teach you the Yang style simplified short form, sometimes referred to as the 24 Step Routine. It's the most practised Tai Chi form in the world and an ideal starting point. The course runs for 30 weeks and is split into three parts, one in each term. Each class begins with a warm up and stretches followed by the Ba Duan Jin, or Eight Pieces of Brocade sequence, where each procedure stimulates a particular organ or function within the body. We then practise Qigong, coordinating breathing and movement and bringing our attention to various parts of the body to increase energy flow. When learning the short form, we'll start by focusing on footwork, then coordinate this with upper body movements, gradually building a sequence that lasts for four minutes. The aim of this course is to enable you to practise the short form and the Qigong routines on your own.