Yang Family Tai Chi Discussion Board

Whatever you do, do not teach the form (to put it aphoristically). The form will by and large repel younger students except for this very small number of people who have that peculiar interest. We all have to remember that the form is factually peripheral to tai chi. The heart of tai chi is actually...

I've been introducing spans of independent practice time during tai chi form classes. This gives students time and space to practice at their own pace even during a formal class. Simply allowing private practice time seems to be a welcome and very beneficial approach to teaching. Students can then f...

I don't think anyone mentioned the oblique aspect of these techniques. Both of them as we know actually exhibit a slight forward slant, rare in the Yang form, and so it seems significant it would be used in these techniques. I have not experimented with the slant much myself, but it results in bring...

I appreciate these responses. I think you are on to something Dpasek. If the blade is sideways to the sternum, the ribcage might actually hinder the entry of the cut (this is all quite grisly I know, but this is in the mentality of learning), but if the blade is vertical then it's as if the blade is...

I'm curious if anyone knows or has ideas about the particular positioning of the Sabre in the stabbing movements of the form. There are several mid-level stabbing movements in the sabre form which usually call for the blade being turned directly upwards. Turning the blade up in such a manner while s...

Thank you for the helpful materials. It makes sense to check Yang's earlier book. I also like the idea of doing a moving step sticking drill as shown in the video. That could be very beneficial towards all of the Tai Chi skills.

On an obliquely related note, I think that there are some issues with equalizing or even relating sticky hands and other connected type hand work with push hands. An important part of push hands are the techniques of ward off, press, push, and roll back, which are only used in there exact way in Tai...

Does anyone on the forum practice Tung Ying Chieh's (Yang's) Spear Form? There is a beautiful photo of Mak Ying Po on Andy Wong's website of this Spear Form. I think this might be one of the only photos of Tung's Spear Form on the web. There must be some other Tung students out there doing this form.

Maybe I could start some ideas moving on this topic. It is a refreshing idea to think about how to teach Tai Chi and make it more engaging. The nature of the art is that it can be difficult to maintain interest past a certain point. Initially Tai Chi is very alluring and I think people who take the ...

Link to Article : http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/68095025/tai-chi-group-booted-by-church Discrimination of Tai Chi practitioners doesn't come up often but it does occur every now and then. As with many kinds of subtle discrimination, it could be happening more often than is publicly kno...

The cause of the misrepresentation might also be from an honest ignorance on the part of the producers and directors. Of course the purpose of such a project is for the directors to educate themselves on their chosen topics and what I see in the video is bad research. Even for educated martial artis...

I wanted to start a thread for teachers and students to brain storm about what would make a Tai Chi class more interesting and enjoyable, maybe a little novel. The type of class I had in mind are the most common types, classes for seniors. These classes are often a mixture of men and women, with man...