Ways to Watch a Group Tai Chi Demonstration Video with Mindfulness

This article* refers to the following video on YouTube:

Demonstration of Yang 24 Forms by TCHI Master Trainers | 23rd Annual Tai Chi Workshop USA (2025)

In 2025 Master Trainer Becky Rahe decided to step back a bit from teaching and asked me to lead her Yang 24 Forms Monthly Skill Builder on Zoom. I was thrilled for the opportunity! During ten one-hour classes we practiced Yang-style fundamentals with the Tai Chi for Beginners program, drilled a short section of the Yang 24 forms, working our way each month from “Single Whip” all through to the “Closing Movement”, and got in three repetitions of the form. Our references throughout were Dr. Lam’s Yang 24 Forms DVD and his book Tai Chi for Beginners and the 24 Forms. Both are excellent, although sometimes, for instance during “Lowering Movement”, many of us weren’t able to do the movements exactly like Dr. Lam. Who among us hasn’t experienced that challenge?

So imagine my delight this past summer when Dr. Lam shared the YouTube video of the Master Trainers demonstrating the Yang 24 forms at the weeklong U.S. workshop in Lake Junaluska, N.C. It is an inspired and inspiring demonstration, all the better because the performers are mere mortals like me and my participants. I watched the video dozens of times and encouraged my participants to take a look as well. That got me thinking of the many ways in which one can watch a group Tai Chi demonstration video.

• Take in the big picture. Bask in the overall impression that the video creates without attaching to anything in particular. Remember that when teaching a movement with the Stepwise Progressive Teaching Method we demonstrate the entire movement first without commentary, giving our participants the 30,000-foot view of the posture. Bring that same beginners mind to your first experience of a Tai Chi group demonstration video.

• Focus on one person. Maybe one of your teachers is in the video, or a friend, or someone whose Tai Chi you admire. Focus solely on them for the entire demonstration. There are only good choices in this video, including MT Hong Yang who is located front row center and is a Yang family lineage holder.

• Go granular. Concentrate on one aspect of the form, like bow-stances, or stepping patterns, or use of the eyes. For instance, in this video there are several different expressions of the Yang style hand. How many can you find? Which do you practice? Why?

• Join in the demonstration. Do the form with the MTs, following along with them as best as you are able. This can be challenging when viewing a video that is shot face-on, and most demonstration videos are. Just do the form as you always do with comfort and confidence in your movements. Don’t worry when you go left and they go right, or when you lose sight of the screen. When you can see your screen again you might be ahead or behind, spot on or doing an entirely different form! That’s part of the fun, learning to “stick and follow” the video participants, adopting your pace to theirs, finding your way into their expression of the form.

• Watch a small group. For instance, in the video MTs Julie Oberhaus, Mark Coffindaffer and Becky Rahe are grouped together in the back row first, second and third from the right. They have practiced with each other for many years and have visible empathy in their collective movement. Also, appreciate how smaller groups move within the larger group. Sometimes the entire group moves as one and other times the posture ripples through the group like a wave. Notice how the form leaders change when the form changes direction, and how that affects the pace of the form.

• Look for “variations” in the movements. Also shortsightedly referred to as “mistakes”, variations are what make Tai Chi so very human. Even MTs occasionally can forget sequences, overextend, neglect principles, speed up or lag behind. Note how gracefully they recover and emulate that humility in your own practice when you vary from your understanding of the ideal 24 Forms. Tai Chi is based on the laws of nature, but it remains a human movement art and can never achieve perfection. We climb the mountain and enjoy the journey and scenery, but never do we ever attain the summit.

• Appreciate the art of the demonstration. Allow the movement and the music, the setting and expression to wash over you for sheer aesthetic enjoyment. Sit back, relax and soak in the Chi.

A Tai Chi demonstration video can inspire, please, and instruct. The Demonstration of Yang 24 Forms by TCHI Master Trainers | 23rd Annual Tai Chi Workshop USA (2025) did all three for me and I hope for you too.

*This article originally appeared in:

Dr Lam's Tai Chi and Health Newsletter - Issue Number 293, January 2026