Tai Chi for Beginners
A 12-week course in the key movements and breathing forms. Built up calmly, step by step.
Tai chi for health, in your own space.
Gentle movement within your own comfort zone, from your living room. You need no experience, no athletic talent and no large room.
From November 2026, all courses are online. At weekends, by arrangement, we practise for an hour outdoors: in the park or on the beach.
Safe
Designed with care for joints and balance. You can also join seated.
At home
All classes are online. A square metre next to your chair or desk is enough.
Outdoors
At weekends, an hour together in the park or on the beach, by arrangement.
Choose the class that suits you
All courses are online, via Teams or Zoom, in English or Dutch. The programmes come from Dr. Paul Lam's Tai Chi for Health Institute. Every class starts with a warm-up and ends with a cool-down. Times are Central European Time.
Tai Chi for Arthritis and Fall Prevention
12 weeks of gentle movement for osteoarthritis, rheumatism and fibromyalgia. Balance, careful weight transfer, stronger muscles.
Tai chi in a small space
Small movements that fit next to your desk, based on the Beijing 10-step 8-form. A careful start, with a few bold movements at the end.
Advanced
The complete official sets of 24 and 37 movements: the Beijing 24-form and Cheng Man-ch'ing's 37-posture form.
Workshop 24 forms
Monthly online workshop with Master Trainer Betty Scanlon.
For organisations
Tai Chi for Work: short sessions of 5, 15 or 30 minutes, online for a team or department. Standing or seated, no change of clothes.
Weekend: an hour outdoors
On Saturday or Sunday, an hour in the park or on the beach near Haarlem. Sand under your feet, wind, a horizon. Visiting the Netherlands? Send me a note.
Four teachers, one way of practising
My tai chi leans on four people. Two I know from class, two mainly from their books and archives.
Dr. Paul Lam
A family physician in Sydney who brought tai chi and medical knowledge together in short, safe programmes. Safety first. You decide how far you go.
Tai Chi for Health Institute; Tai Chi for Arthritis (1997)
Cheng Man-ch'ing
Painter, poet, physician and tai chi teacher (1902–1975). His short 37-posture form centres on song: releasing. According to tradition, a dream of broken arms taught him that the arms have no strength of their own. The body moves them.
Oral tradition, via students and the Green Way archive
Robert Chuckrow
A physicist who has studied since 1970 with teachers including Cheng Man-ch'ing. He tests the old principles the way a physicist would: try it, measure it, feel it.
The Tai Chi Book (YMAA, 1998); Tai Chi Dynamics (YMAA, 2008)
Michael P. Garofalo
Gardener, librarian and tai chi practitioner in California. He practised, read and collected, and set sources side by side without preaching. A student among students.
Green Way Research, egreenway.com; Cloud Hands Blog
What they share: start gently, feel for yourself, keep reading. No slimming tai chi, no quick promises.
Watch me, follow me, show me
Watch me · I demonstrateFollow me · we move togetherShow me · you on your own
You may always stop, ask a question or make a movement smaller. It is about your energy, not about copying someone else exactly.
More than fifty years of moving and repeating, a little better each time, like a panda
I am Gerbrandt van Santen; outside the Netherlands most people call me Max. I am a certified instructor with the Tai Chi for Health Institute. More than fifty years ago I started judo: repeat, repeat, and keep finding something new in the same movement. After detours through other martial arts, I found tai chi twenty years ago.
I live and practise in Haarlem, the Netherlands: in a small room, in the Haarlemmerhout woods, in the dunes and by the sea.
“Pandas are clumsy, sometimes funny, and can do more than you think.”Why my classes are called Tai Chi Panda. Self-mockery is always welcome.
The Green Way library
At biblio.taichi-panda.com I look after Michael P. Garofalo's Green Way library and keep adding to it: classic texts, translations of the Daodejing, the Tai Chi Classics, reading lists and the stories behind the names of the movements.
“There is nothing in the world more soft and weak than water, and yet for attacking things that are firm and strong there is nothing that can take precedence of it.”Laozi, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 78. Translated by James Legge, 1891
Try it tomorrow: stand next to your chair, feet hip-width apart. Shift your weight very slowly from left to right, ten times. Notice where you hold your breath.
Join in: the first class is free
Send a message with the class you would like to try, or ask about an hour outdoors at the weekend. You will receive the Teams or Zoom link by email.
Tai chi complements medical care; it does not replace it. If you are unsure whether it suits you, check with your doctor or therapist first.