A friend of mine in hospital asked me if tai chi could be done without standing up. Although asked as a joke, this is actually what I  do with some of my clients.... Certain clients have mobility issues and others feel like sitting down is where they're at.

For such clients, I've devised a routine that's a combination of tai chi breathing exercises (chi kung) and tai chi massage, which they feel happy to try out and persevere at. With one such group, I've been doing this for 3 months or so and now for the first time we did one exercise standing up for 8 breaths, then back to sitting for the rest of the session.

This might not sound a lot, but for this group it was a real breakthrough - they realised they could do it! So we'll continue to work like that and in another 3 months or so, then I'll add a second standing up exercise,  somewhere else in the sequence, so they have a long sit down between the two standings. Maybe three months after that we'll add another one and in that way gradually build more standing into the sequence, as is manageable for them.

 I do believe "use it or lose it" when it comes to standing - avoiding mobility scooters becoming a necessity of ageing has to give a better quality of life IMO.