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Wheelchair Tai Chi 10 Forms: Free Video, Paper & Full List

Janet WhitfieldHealth & Science

Posted November 2, 2026

Wheelchair Tai Chi (WTC10) is a ten-movement Tai Chi set performed entirely from a seated position. It was developed by Dr. Yong Tai Wang, an exercise science and rehabilitation researcher, while he was dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Texas at Tyler. Most Tai Chi needs bow stances, horse stances, single-leg balance and low transitions. For people with spinal cord injury, stroke, severe arthritis or lower-limb amputation, none of that is reachable. WTC10 takes the legs out of the equation and keeps the rest — spinal rotation, the opening and closing of the chest and back, breath coordinated with intent. It is Tai Chi performed where the movement actually lives, above the waist. It is also completely free. The video, the published research and the form list are all public.

Why it is not just the standing form, sitting down

Dr. Wang did not simply cut the legs off a Yang-style form. He applied for research funding and tested it.

Two grants:

Funder	Grant number
Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA)	PVA Education Foundation Grant # 592
National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR)	NIDRR Grant Number H133E080003

The money paid for lab work. Wheelchair users practised the set with biomechanical sensors attached, while the team measured heart rate, muscle activation, upper-limb joint loading and psychological stress markers.

The results were published in 2015 in the Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance: Wang, Y. T., Chang, L.-S., Chen, S., Zhong, Y., Yang, Y., Li, Z., & Madison, T. (2015). Wheelchair Tai Chi as a Therapeutic Exercise for Individuals with Spinal Cord Injury. JOPERD, 86(5), 27–37. DOI: 10.1080/07303084.2015.1022673

A full run-through takes 8 to 10 minutes. The paper reports gains in cardiorespiratory endurance, shoulder and upper-joint range of motion, plus improvements in the anxiety and depression scores common among people with spinal cord injury. Those sit alongside the broader benefits documented for standing practice, though the measurements here were taken seated and on this group.

The article also sets out eight principles for practising it — relaxation, head position, chest and back placement, shoulders and elbows, waist, distinguishing empty from full, coordination of upper and lower, and breath — with each of the ten forms broken down and illustrated. The first of those, Song, is the one most often mistranslated as plain relaxation; seated practice makes the difference easier to feel, because there is no stance to hide behind.

Wheelchair Tai Chi 10 forms — seated demonstration figures from the published sequence — The ten forms, illustrated in the paper. Each movement is shown from a seated position with the arm path marked.

The ten forms

Taken from the published sequence. The repeated Single Whip is not a typo — the original repeats it in the second section.

#	English	Chinese
1	Commencing Form	起势
2	Part the Wild Horse's Mane	野马分鬃
3	Single Whip	单鞭
4	Wave Hands Like Clouds	云手
5	Single Whip	单鞭
6	Whirl Arms on Both Sides	左右穿梭
7	Grasp the Bird's Tail – Left Side	左揽雀尾
8	Grasp the Bird's Tail – Right Side	右揽雀尾
9	Cross Hands	十字手
10	Closing Form	收势

Six of the ten keep their classical names — Commencing, Wild Horse's Mane, Single Whip, Cloud Hands, Grasp the Bird's Tail and Closing. If you already know the standing versions, the forms guide maps the full standing sequences these come from.

Who this is for

WTC10 was built and measured on people with spinal cord injury, but the movement problem it solves is broader than that diagnosis. If you cannot stand for the length of a practice, the question is the same.

If the barrier is joint pain rather than balance — Tai Chi for arthritis covers what the research supports for standing and seated practice both.
If you are seated because of back problems, the back pain guide sets out which movements help and which to leave out.
If balance is the concern and standing is still possible, Tai Chi for balance is the standing counterpart to this set.
If you are starting later in life with no prior practice, starting over 50 assumes no mobility you do not have.

For the public health case behind seated and adapted practice, the CDC's position on arthritis and fall prevention is worth reading before you decide this is only for people in wheelchairs.

Watch the form

Taught by Dr. Wang himself, ten forms in order, seated throughout.

If the player does not load, the video is at youtube.com/watch?v=bJHyFrDmXgU.

Get the paper

Form table and full paper
researchgate.net — Wheelchair Tai Chi 10 Forms
ResearchGate requires a free account to download.

The paper directly
doi.org/10.1080/07303084.2015.1022673

tai chi form yang style song tai chi chuan

3 Replies

Margaret Okonjo#1

November 2, 2026

The biomechanics angle is what makes this one different from the chair Tai Chi videos all over YouTube. Most of them are just a teacher adapting movements by eye. This set was measured — joint loading, muscle activation, stress markers — before it was published, and the paper is sitting there to read.
What I find most useful is the eight principles section. Relaxation, head position, chest and back, shoulders and elbows, waist, empty and full, upper and lower together, breath. Those are the same eight a standing practitioner works on. It makes clear that nothing essential is being given up when the legs come out of it.
One thing worth flagging for anyone reading the paper: the population in the study is spinal cord injury specifically. If you are coming to this after a stroke, or with arthritis, the movement mechanics transfer fine but the physiological results were not measured on your group. Worth knowing before you take the numbers as your own.

Daniel Reyes#2

November 2, 2026

I taught a seated class at a community centre for two years and I wish I had known about WTC10 at the start. What I ended up doing was adapting the 24-form myself, movement by movement, and it took months of trial and error to work out which parts simply do not survive being seated.
The form list here answers that question directly. You can see immediately which classical movements the author kept — Wild Horse's Mane, Single Whip, Cloud Hands, Grasp the Bird's Tail — and how he sequenced them. There is no Brush Knee, no Repulse Monkey, no Fair Lady Works the Shuttles as such. Those movements rely on the step and the turn, and seated they lose their structure.
For anyone teaching, the value is that sequencing decision. Ten forms with a repeat of Single Whip in the middle is not a shortened 24-form. It is a different set built for a different body.

Helen Prasad#3

November 2, 2026

My mother is 78 and uses a wheelchair after a fall two years ago damaged her hip. She had practised Tai Chi for most of her adult life and stopped completely afterwards, because standing for any length of time became impossible. She has been quietly grieving it, to be honest.
We tried the video last week. She did the ten forms from her chair and afterwards said it felt like the practice had come back to her, not like a substitute for it. That distinction matters more than it probably sounds from the outside.
Two practical notes from our experience. The video moves at a pace that assumes some familiarity with the movements, so we watched it through twice before attempting it. And the arm circles in Cloud Hands are wider than her chair allows, so she does them smaller. Neither was a problem, but anyone trying this at home should expect to make those adjustments.

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