Tai Chi for Therapists Online CPD Course

If you can fund your attendance on this course via your trust or organisation then please download this one page guide that will describe the process, thanks.

We have written Tai Chi for Therapists for all registered therapists, clinicians, and rehabilitation professionals who would like to learn how to implement evidence-based tai chi and qigong into their practice.

If you’re a registered physiotherapist, physical therapist, occupational therapist, occupational or physiotherapy assistant, or other registered rehabilitation professional get in touch, we’re here to help.

Yes. You receive a CPD certificate on completion, which you can use to support your HCPC portfolio and revalidation requirements.

The course runs over six weeks with lifetime access to video tutorials, downloadable handouts and reference lists, so you can work through the material at your own pace.

We also run optional live sessions with tutors and fellow AHPs, recorded for anyone who can't attend live, plus an optional one-to-one session with your tutors.

Yes. Tai chi and qigong have a growing evidence base across a range of health conditions, including, musculoskeletal, neurological, cardiopulmonary and mental health.

We treat evidence honesty as a non-negotiable principle: we distinguish a strong evidence base from a promising but unreplicated signal, and we say so openly when the research is weak or absent, rather than overstating what tai chi can do.

No. We look at tai chi and qigong purely through an evidence-based rehabilitation and biopsychosocial lens.

We don't teach meridians, channels, vital energy, acupuncture or acupressure.

Instead, we explain how tai chi and qigong works through mechanisms your clinical training already recognises: interoception, autonomic regulation, neuroplasticity, motor learning and predictive processing.

Our course is aimed at registered health professionals who want a scientifically grounded rationale they can use in clinical settings.

Yes. Tai chi appears as a named example activity in the UK Chief Medical Officers' physical activity guidelines for older adults, which recommend balance and coordination activities for people aged 65 and over to help maintain independence and reduce fall risk.

We cover the mechanisms behind tai chi's effect on balance, proprioception and confidence in depth in our musculoskeletal week, and we're equally clear about where the evidence is strong for some tai chi forms and movements than others.

Parkinson's has one of the strongest evidence bases of any neurological condition we cover, anchored by a landmark 2012 New England Journal of Medicine trial and further supported by more recent research.

We look specifically at dual-task gait training and how tai chi's cognitive and motor demands work together, which makes it a particularly useful clinical example for therapists working with this population.

This course teaches you how to bring evidence-based tai chi and qigong movements into your existing clinical or group work as a registered physiotherapist, occupational therapist or other rehabilitation professional.

Many of our participants already lead exercise-based groups, such as falls prevention classes, cardiac rehab or pilates and yoga sessions, and use what they learn here to add tai chi and qigong movements into that existing practice.

The course doesn't award a general tai chi teaching qualification, so it doesn't prepare you to run a stand-alone tai chi class outside your clinical scope. You apply everything you learn within your own professional registration and existing scope of practice.

If you feel unsure whether leading tai chi movements falls within your scope of practice, or whether your current professional indemnity insurance covers this, check with your supervisor or your insurer before you start. This matters particularly for NHS staff who take over an existing tai chi group as part of a new role or rotation, since the setting may carry assumptions about qualification worth confirming rather than inheriting.

The course is delivered by Phil Sheridan and Helen Parsons, co-directors of Discover Tai Chi Ltd. Helen is an HCPC registered occupational therapist, and Phil was an educator,, facilitator and mentor at the School of Medicine, University of Leeds. Both bring years of clinical and tai chi teaching experience to the course content.