Customer Reviews

Scott Cole's Discover Tai Chi for Beginners - Workout Essentials

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"...because he is alive to difficulty. That is why he meets with no difficulty." ~Lao Tzu

Firstly this workout DVD has so many features it was quite amazing. If you are new to Tai Chi this is a perfect place to start. The music is soothing and exotic, the scenery is beautiful and the instructor's voice is calming.

Secondly, I could actually do the workout on the first try. Tai Chi looks difficult when it is done too quickly. On many other DVDs I felt that I could not learn the moves fast enough so I gave up. Scott Cole moves at a perfect pace.

Scott Cole focuses on guiding you through Tai Chi postures and training techniques. He blends martial and healing arts in order to empower you and motivate you to move in a healing direction. He was named one of the Top 5 Fitness Instructors in the world and has appeared in over 300 publications worldwide.

DVD Contents:

1. Play Features - Plays all the features
2. Chapter Selections - Pushing the Wave, Beautiful Woman Turns Her Waist, Grounded Chi Journey in Hawaii, Parting Horses Mane
3. Special Features - Postures with Narration, Postures With Music, Workbook Slideshow, Hawaii Workout to Music.
4. Audio Features - Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1

The benefits of this DVD are immediately apparent:
Renewed Strength
Upper Body Warming - blood flow definitely increases in the upper body.
Increased Flexibility
Increase in Energy and Confidence

This Tai Chi workout is the best I've ever tried. It was easy to learn the exercises and I also had a few great laughs because, well, some of the postures and movements are rather funny the first time you do them.

Once you have learned the moves you can then try the workouts with just music. Once you have memorized the workouts you may find yourself wanting to do the exercises outside. The exercise routines can be done almost anywhere and you need very little space to do them indoors at home.

~The Rebecca Review

however, you have to listen to a lot of New Age blabber. If you don't have much time to spend, have never done Tai Chi before, and you need a workout that is not too physically demanding, scott Cole's program really will fill the bill. However, this is not the traditional short form and the individual positions are performed differently by Cole (though they are easier to do) than by traditional Tai Chi teachers. Paul Lam's Tai Chi - The 24 Forms is a much better place to start if you've had some Tai Chi background or you want to learn according to the traditional style. Lam's DVD is detailed and precise, and includes 6 Qigong exercises as well. Personally, I found Cole's DVD a good springboard to get back into Tai Chi, but probably won't view it again now that I've stumbled across Paul Lam. Lam (a medical doctor) also has Tai Chi programs for people with diabetes, arthritis, folks who are over 50, and for absoulte beginners who need an easier introduction. But most of all, no New Age mental clutter to distract you from the beauty of the Tai Chi movements.

I have been doing Tai Chi in my home in front of the TV now for about 8 weeks. Scott Cole presents the material in an easy to digest way and keeps it light and interesting. I own this disc and the AM/PM workout disc. This disc is a little more advanced than the AM/PM workout disc in my opinion, but it doesn't move too fast. I would recommend the AM/PM disc if you haven't studied any martial arts before. I think that the postures in the AM/PM disc are a little easier to do than the moves on this disc.

That said, I think this disc is also appropriate for a beginner. The disc presents an introductory workout that gets the juices flowing. The disc menu is organized to help you do the workout, but also to get additional help on the postures. All of the moves are available from the postures menu. This is a good feature in my opinion - you can review any posture you are having problems with.

Overall I really like the disc. One complaint that I do have is that the default audio is stereo. The default should be Dolby digital 5.1. The DVD player and TV can convert that signal to stereo so why make that the default mode? Anyway, enjoy.

Cheers,

Chris

I'm new to Tai Chi and am very happy with this video. As others have noted, Paul Lam's is a good reference, but is fairly useless as a guide for a workout. Scott knows how most people like to use these videos: standing in front of the TV, getting an extended set of demos and a chance to practice complete motions several times. It also helps that Scott makes himself a mirror image of you, so you don't have to turn yourself around in your head as you practice.

The sequence and pacing of the exercises are wonderful. Gentle seeming, but building up gradually until you may be a bit amazed at yourself. Feels like a very productive workout, and I regulary walk, run, and do calisthenics. From what I've seen, the differences in form from Lam's are small.

The "new age" references are very minor and integrated with the moves. They help to remind you that Tai Chi has a philosophy behind it, rather than just being exercise.

Scott's video is great for getting into the feeling of a connected whole-body routine. You can see his dance background behind what he's teaching you to do, though it really is Tai Chi, at least it looks like what I've seen in China. My in-laws from China, who have done Tai Chi there, give it two thumbs up.

The music and visuals are very pleasant and Scott conveys a sense of enjoyment and fun, instead of being dour or grim.

This DVD I'll use regularly. When I'm ready to prepare for competition, I'll get Lam's out of the library again.

This is a great DVD! Well organized, nicely produced, beautiful music and setting and a great teacher. Moves are explained slowly and carefully, the demonstrations make total sense.

This is a pleasure to use. If you want to go on or want a more difficult workout look at his Tai Chi for Weight Loss. Also a beautiful and well done DVD.

A good investment for your exercise video library.

I took Tai Chi classes a year ago and because of a busy schedule got to quit. I really miss those classes cause Tai Chi is the best way to relax and exercise your body and your mind. So I decided to start again with this DVD and I am not disapointed! Scott Cole is an amazing teacher, he explains well and he makes you feel great about yourself! I loved the special features and especially the different angles option for the moves I have a hard time with. It is a DVD that I suggest to everyone. Trust me, you will feel so good after a session!!!

I have viewed various Tai Chi videos, but not until Scott Coles' Discover Tai Chi for Beginners, was I able to pull it all together. From other videos I learned a little of this and a little of that, but from watching Scott's video, I was finally able to get the flow of the movements blending together and gradually incorporate leg and foot movements along with the arm and hand flow.

Scott does show a lot in this video, but you can digest it at your own pace. With each viewing you become aware of more fine-tuning that you're able to apply to your form and movement. He has it all there for you to absorb at your own pace. Learning through mirroring his image as he faces us makes it much easier for me. I found that at one point when the camera shifted behind him that I lost my sense of direction and I became disoriented in not being able to mirror exactly what he was doing. But this was an isolated occurrence in the video, which made me aware of how much I rely on the mirroring.

The video also had excellent continuity. The camera would take you from outdoors and back to the studio (or vice versa) and he would be continuing the flow of the movement at the exact position where he was at the previous location. This is an excellent quality video.

With Scott Cole's video, I have become totally addicted to Tai Chi. Finally as a beginner, I am able to pull it all together. I am 58 and have done Bikram Yoga for 8 years, and have now incorporated some Tai Chi into my twice weekly 90-minute yoga routine. And, I now make time for 15-45 minute Tai Chi several times a week. Since doing Tai-Chi with Scott's video, I have noticed an increased strength and stability in my legs, knees and ankles, not to mention a strong awareness to increased energy and energy flow.

I'll be looking forward to checking out the next level by Scott in the near future. At present I'm still getting plenty of use out of this Beginner's tape. By the way, I would have given this 6 stars if that was one of the choices.

Just call me "Tai Chi Rose" of Chicago, IL...

This DVD was useful to a Tai Chi beginner like me. The movements are easy, and Scott Cole focus more on the flow of the movements than "make sure your fingers are done this way" kind of attitude that I have seen in other Tai Chi videos. He obviously takes Tai Chi seriously, but not SO seriously that it is unapproachable to a beginner. Scott encourages you to go at your own pace, which is refreshing.

I bought this video to improve balance and lose weight. I've accomplished both goals using Scott's DVD.

The workout is low impact (lasting about 50 mins from beginning to end) and easy to do even for beginners. You will feel it after you are done, but a pleasant "gee, it is working" kind of way, not an overly sore kind of way. Like other reviewers, this DVD has made me a Tai Chi addict, and I now work with this DVD every day. Highly recommended.

Scott Cole does an amazing job of instructing his viewer through specific tai chi moves, and this was the first tai chi DVD I actually used over and over for a while even. This DVD is without a doubt perfect for beginners, just like the title suggests. However, after buying almost every tai chi DVD of Scott Cole's, i realize his teachings are really just a cheesy "dumbed-down" version of true tai chi. I'll explain why in a bit.

But before I start, I just want to add that I've read a lot of reviews commenting on his "new age" babble, but this is not new age at all, this is almost ancient knowledge, and it has an approach coming from however many years ago. But the roots of its beliefs are most definitely real.

Anyways, The DVD will be able to teach you every move they throw at you, and it will be a very fun experience as Scott Cole is an enjoyable person to learn from. However, the amount of material on the DVD is surprisingly low. After quickly finishing this DVD, I went straight to almost every other tai chi DVD of Scott's, it didn't take me long to find out that almost every DVD of his are almost all the identical. Yes, there are some new moves on each DVD, but there are so many DVD's in his "collection" that it starts to get pretty expensive if you wish to learn more. Your better off getting something with all the traditional 24 or 48 postures (or taking a class even), it may not be as easy to learn, but you'll have the entire tai chi database as reference rather then only a sliver of it. "Simplified Tai Chi Chuan" by Master Liang, Shou-Yu will be a good DVD/book if you really want to get serious about tai chi.

You must understand that traditional tai chi consists of either 24 or 48 postures that go through in a specific order, and when you watch a tai chi master, such as Master Liang, and see the beauty of the moves together, you will understand why. It's not in some strict rule book, as each of the moves are really individually powerful in their own way, but in traditional tai chi each move sets into the next one, so it really becomes a chain of moves, which any master will tell you is really the focus of tai chi, even Scott talks about it. Now in every DVD of Scott Cole, he picks specific moves out of the posture list and kind of teaches them one at a time. So his approach to tai chi is really: move #1, returning position, move #2, returning position, move #3, etc. To me, this seems to destroy the entire purpose of tai chi. However, I would be wrong to say that there is zero benefit from this DVD. Yet you may like his approach, to summarize it up, he takes tai chi and puts it into a kind of aerobic class style (one and two and three and four... GOOD!). This really becomes apparent on his "tai chi for weight loss" DVD.

OVERALL: If you haven't even touched tai chi before and your curious to its benefits, this DVD is absolutely perfect. If after finishing this DVD and your interesting in learning tai chi as an art form, do not buy any other Scott Cole DVD. I had to learn the hard way. On top of not learning very many extra moves, you will be stuck in his approach to tai chi, which, in my opinion, is extremely limited. I gave it 4 stars, because I have to rate this specific DVD, not the series. This DVD does everything its supposed to.

The start of the DVD, where you have to go through all the company's crud that made the DVD, is really really annoying. Scott is fairly easy to follow, but I'm still not all the way through the DVD. I wish he went into some stretches, and how you're supposed to breathe and all a bit more; he goes a bit fast, sometimes. Which may seem a strange complaint, given he's moving in slooooow motion, but this is the very first time I've ever tried this stuff; I'm not just in it to learn the forms, I'm in a remote area and have no other way to learn this stuff. I guess I was hoping for a bit more of an introduction to Tai Chi; but if you already have a bit of experience in yoga or martial arts, and just want to learn & practice with the basic forms, this is a good DVD.