Seated Tai Chi
Six slow movements done from a chair, with a diagram for each one and a smaller version for stiff days. About twelve minutes.
Tai chi is usually pictured standing, in a park, at dawn. Almost all of it works sitting down — the slow weight shifts that make it hard on painful knees are not what the movements are for. What is left is the part that matters: a steady arm, a slow breath, and your attention on one thing for ten minutes.
Six movements, in order, about twelve minutes. Nothing here needs a floor, a mat, shoes or anyone watching. Print it and keep it where the chair is.
Seated Tai Chi · painfix.ca/plan-seated-tai-chi
Before you start
- A chair without arms if you have one, so nothing catches your elbows. Both feet flat on the floor, bare or in flat shoes.
- Sit forward of the backrest if you can hold yourself there comfortably; use the backrest if you cannot. Neither is cheating.
- Slow is the whole exercise: if a movement is quick enough to raise your heart rate, it is too quick. Keep breathing through it — holding your breath is the commonest mistake here and the easiest to fix.
The six movements
This is the whole method in miniature: nothing moves except the breath. Let the out-breath run longer than the in-breath. On a day when you can manage two minutes and no more, do this one and stop — it still counts.
Go only as high as your shoulders allow. Stopping at chest height is a full repetition if that is where the movement stops being comfortable — the height is not the point, the slowness is. Breathe in on the way up, out on the way down.
The turn comes from the middle of your back rather than your neck; let your eyes follow the upper hand. Keep both hands soft, as though they were resting on the surface of water.
Open to the width that feels easy, not the width you can reach by forcing it. Breathe in as you open and out as you close. Stop short of any pinch at the front of the shoulder.
The extending hand goes out flat, as if pressing a wall away; the drawing hand comes back near the shoulder. Keep your shoulders down away from your ears — that is the part that quietly creeps up.
This is the closing move and it is the one people skip. Sit for three more breaths after your hands land. Finishing deliberately is a good part of why a session settles you rather than stirring you up.
How much, how often
| Week | Days a week | Rounds of each movement | About |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | 3 | 4 | 8 min |
| 3–4 | 4 | 6 | 12 min |
| 5–6 | 5 | 6 | 12 min |
| 7 on | 5–7 | 8 | 15 min |
A round is one repetition, or one pair where the movement has a left and a right. Frequency goes up before length does: a short session most days does more than a long one on Sundays.
On a bad day
- Halve the rounds before you consider skipping. Two rounds of all six beats six rounds of none.
- Lower the ceiling. Keep everything between waist and chest, and leave the overhead one out.
- Keep the first and the last. Settling and gathering are worth doing on their own.
Why sitting down does not spoil it
The randomised trials of tai chi that report the clearest results — knee osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, balance in older adults — almost all test the standing form, and it would be dishonest to hand you a seated version and claim the same numbers. What carries over is the part these movements are made of: slow controlled range of motion, steady attention, and breathing that does not stop when the arms move. What does not carry over is the leg strength and the balance training, which are exactly what the standing weight shifts provide. If standing is available to you, stand.
Our write-up of what the tai chi trials actually found goes through the evidence properly, including where it thins out. Arthritis Society Canada lists exercise programs by province if you would rather do this in a room with other people, which for most people is the thing that makes it stick.
The movements above are the common seated forms taught in those programs, stripped of the names that make them sound harder than they are. There is no lineage here and nothing to buy.