Chair tai chi keeps the part of tai chi most people come for, slow movement timed to an unhurried breath, and takes away the standing. You sit near the front of a sturdy chair with both feet on the floor, and your arms and waist do the traveling.

Check with your doctor or physical therapist before you begin if you have had a fall, dizziness, a joint replacement, a heart or blood pressure condition, or pain. Stop if anything hurts. Nothing on this page asks you to stand or balance, and a counter or table close by will steady you when you get up at the end.

What a sit looks like

A sit is one session in the chair, ten to fifteen minutes long. Each move repeats for a stretch of breaths rather than a count of reps, because the breath sets the speed. The eight moves come from traditional tai chi and qigong shapes, simplified for sitting:

• Rising and sinking. Both arms float up to shoulder height and settle back down.
• Opening and closing. Your hands drift apart and together around an imaginary balloon.
• Holding up the sky. Palms rise overhead, only as far as your shoulders allow, then float down.
• Wave hands like clouds. A slow side-to-side sweep of the arms, your waist turning a little.
• Holding the ball. Your hands cup an imaginary ball and roll it over.
• Parting the horse's mane. One hand rises on a diagonal while the other presses down.
• Brush the knee and push. One hand sweeps past your knee as the other pushes softly forward.
• Closing. Hands rest on your belly and the breath settles.

How this page works

Press begin and a figure on a painted chair starts to move, with the words "breathe in" and "breathe out" beside it, so you can glance up and copy the shape. The timer walks through the day's moves by itself, and you can pause, skip ahead or stop anytime.

Arms only keeps your feet still on the floor, while arms and feet adds small foot work, such as raising a heel as you turn. The breath runs at a gentle seven or eight breaths a minute, or a slower six. Never hold your breath. If you feel lightheaded, breathe normally and let the arms follow.

When a sit ends, the page asks how your body feels: looser, about the same, or achy. Your answer puts a tinted cushion on that day's chair, and a short reading adds up your sits and minutes. If two of your last three sits ended achy, it suggests smaller movements and a talk with your doctor or physical therapist if the ache stays. It never scores you.

The four weeks

The chart holds twenty-eight days: twenty sits and eight rest days, drawn as a cup of tea.

• Week one, ten minutes. Both arms together with slow breathing.
• Week two, ten to twelve minutes. A slow turn joins in.
• Week three, twelve to fifteen minutes. Hands trade places, and all eight moves are in.
• Week four, fifteen minutes. All eight moves, twice through.

On any longer day you can take a short ten instead, and the cushion records what you actually did. The plan moves by sits, not dates. Miss a Tuesday and the next empty chair is still the next one, with nothing to catch up on.

What the evidence does and does not say

The closest study to this page is a randomized trial of seated tai chi with sixty older wheelchair users in a single care facility in Taiwan. Those who practiced for forty minutes, three times a week over twenty-six weeks, reported better quality of life and fewer depressive symptoms than those who kept to their usual activities. One small trial, in people living in care, with far longer sessions, says little about ten minutes at home.

A Cochrane review of exercise for older people living in the community found low-certainty evidence that tai chi may cut the rate of falls by about nineteen percent. That review covers exercise programs broadly and does not show that a seated practice does the same job, so this page makes no promise about balance or falls. If falls are your worry, a physical therapist can suggest supported work on your feet.

On safety, the US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health says tai chi appears to be safe, and also warns against using it to put off seeing a health care provider about a medical problem.

Setting up the chair

Pick a sturdy chair without wheels, one where your feet reach the floor. A chair without arms is easiest for the wide sweeps. If a shoulder complains during holding up the sky, stop at chest height. When the sit ends, stay put for a moment before you stand.

When to use it

Mornings suit many people, and so does the slump after a long stretch of sitting. To spend more time on the breath alone, Belly Breathing slows things down further. For a broader session, try The Daily Stretch Mat. And when your doctor or physical therapist agrees you are ready, the Tai Chi Walking Plan takes this same unhurried pace onto your feet, close to a wall.

Once sitting feels easy and you want to try the moves on your feet, Tai Chi Move Cards shows them standing, and for seated strength rather than slow flow, The Chair Circuit builds a workout around what you pick.