Video:Tai Chi: Constant Bear

Transcript:Tai Chi: Constant Bear

Hi, I’m Lenny Friedland, from Long River Tai Chi Circle, here for About.com. This exercise is called constant bear. It was called Constant Bear because the founder of our lineage went to the zoo once and he saw the bears moving and he said "Oh wow, they have a lot of chi." And, this exercise that we do is like the bears rolling around.

Constant Bear is a Shifting Tai Chi Exercise

What we do is we stand with feet parallel, shoulder width, toes and heels on a loin. And we shift the weight and turn the waist, shift and turn in the same direction, so, shift left – turn left, shift right – turn right. And it’s just shifting back and forth and you can go slower or faster, just let the arms relax and let them move naturally with the turning of the waist and the shifting of the weight.

Tai Chi Relaxes and Loosens the Body

Be careful to have the feet flat on the ground. You don’t want to have the feet roll when you do this. You want to keep the feet absolutely flat on the ground. That helps the ankles open up and it helps it open up the hips.

Constant bear is a nice exercise as a general loosening and relaxing exercise. The fact that we keep the feet flat on the ground tends to open up the ankles and open up the hips. We keep the shoulders sitting on top of the hips. We don’t twist the spine and it’s basically a very comfortable and relaxing way to just loosen up and let go of tension. It’s a wonderful exercise for relaxing the shoulder, relaxing the back, just a general loosening up and relaxing. Circulating, shift left, turn left – shift right, turn right. Keep the head suspended from heaven. Shift and turn, shift and turn. Constant Bear.

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