Yang Family Tai Chi Discussion Board

Greetings all, If I have understood the table in the ‘Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan Essentials’ book (v2.1 - pg 120) in ‘The Learning Sequence’ chapter, it is suggesting that the progression of study for ‘Approximate Practice – Rank 1’ students should include the 103-Hand Form, the 13-Hand Form and the ...

Greetings all, This is an extremely large subject. I will try to answer according to my own thinking and experience with respect to the Association’s Tai Chi. First, Tai Chi has the advantage of having low barriers to entry and being generally easy to practice. It has the disadvantage of being hard ...

Greetings all, As I mentioned in my previous post “We have searched for an accredited Yang Family instructors nearby, but with no luck”. and I find myself struggling to find guidance on ways to develop and assess our Tai Chi skills without a skilled and experienced Tai Chi instructor. I would love t...

Greetings all, I like Frank’s explanation. Another way to think about it is that many Chinese philosophical concepts do not really describe concrete things as such, but rather the processes behind them. Yin, Yang, and the Five “Elements” are not substances, but rather ways in which things behave. If...

Hi TCA,

Rather than just posting a link, would you mind summarizing a little further what the book discusses?

Thanks,
Audi

Greetings gvi, Now that our former instructor has retired and I'm a part of the "cadre," I feel obliged to ask if this is worth learning on my own. I would say, “Absolutely it’s worth learning.” It looks like good, interesting, and fun Tai Chi. Why not learn it if you have a competent teac...

I am not familiar with the form, but both the form and the performance look nice.

The full form is 128 moves, my sifu learned it from his teacher Lai Han Lian.

Do the names of the posture and the sequence more or less follow the traditional form?

Greetings GVI, If you don't mind my asking, what makes the time we take important? Your further comments seem to give a good answer to your own question. In doing the form faster or slower, you gain and lose things. Compared to the standard pace, you probably lose more than you gain since the form d...

Greeting Lim, “?”.…My question exactly….based on the format of your post…Do you attribute these 2 quoted statements to me or are they just your random pick to reply? The quotation above is from Frank (fchai), and the below quotation is from CD (Chi Dragon). Perhaps you might want to address it to th...

IMHO In Taiji, we should be talking about the biochemical energy in the human body rather than the dynamic energies as in mechanics. The energy I find most important is biomechanical and not biochemical. In the approach to Tai Chi that I have been taught, biochemical energy is something assumed and...

Greetings Ferdy, From what I recall, the current Yang family recommends between 20-25 minutes for practice of their form. Here is a link to one of the Seattle Center Directors calling the form: https://yangfamilytaichi.com/documents/103-calling.mp3 . Her overall pace is basically the same as my curr...

Bob, To summarize: Using too much Yang, muscle contraction, closing, is bad. Using too much Yin, muscle expansion, opening, is bad. Using an equal amount of both Yin and Yang, that is the desired method. To reach that method you have to take small steps, learning it a bit deeper each time you pass a...

Greetings all: I came up with this image to piece together what he was saying: I think the diagram is quite accurate for when Master Yang is talking about unification of the energy in the body. It is also accurate in describing how he normally breaks the body into three when discussing what should g...

Greetings all, This is a difficult subject to discuss and to understand. It is difficult first because different teachers seems to have a different understanding of what it is. It is also difficult because different teachers seem to have a different understanding of how to describe it. Thirdly, it i...

I would like to add to this topic, but would prefer not to engage in any arguments about the issue of Tai Chi versus other martial arts. The best way to evaluate the effectiveness of Tai Chi is to experience it for oneself. If we are talking about martial effectiveness and the type of Tai Chi repres...