Flash cards...

[global village idiot]

Not long ago I read the following interview:

https://neigong.net/2008/10/29/an-inter ... ang-fukui/

In it, the following passage stuck out and resonated with me:

YF: Yang Ban Hou and Yang Chen Hou’s practices were both somewhat different from each other, as well as from modern practice. I think if they or their father were alive today and observed modern Taijiquan, they would not recognize much of what we call the Yang style Taijiquan.

BF: How did they practice then?

YF: First of all, they devoted most of their practice to gongfu and martial arts, not to health or “spiritual development,” although these two latter aspects certainly underlied their practice. Their emphasis was different. For example, they never practiced more than a two or three form or movements in sequence, in order to develop fighting skill and gongfu, and they never linked more than five forms together. There were no such things as the 24 or 85 or 108 form Taijiquan. Only two or three forms at a time were used for the solo practice of gongfu.
According to my grandfather, Yang Chen Hou’s practice stressed more form combinations while his brother, Yang Ban Hou, put more emphasis upon push hands for fighting and two-man practice.

This is not something many of my students would really care to do; however, I have a few students (in case I haven't mentioned it, I'm now teaching a class on my own at my Masonic Lodge) who - once we've finished learning the Standard form and understood it - seem open to approaching the art as more of a fighting system.

So I got the following idea: Write the postures of the Standard form on blank playing cards, which are then shuffled. Draw three cards at random and then attempt to integrate them as seamlessly as possible.

This would only apply to solo practice, not as sanshou - sanshou is by its nature relatively open-ended.

I'd be grateful for your thoughts.

gvi

[Audi]

I do not think there is agreement that the person quoted in this interview is a descendant of the Yang Family that created Yang Style. It would be against the Yang family tradition to name a person after an ancestor, and the specific relationship of this person to the Yang Family has not been demonstrated. Check out this family tree for more information.

Regardless of the relationship of the person or lack thereof, the information in the interview can stand or fall on its own merits and bears consideration at least in that light.

I think it is generally accepted that Yang Style and all Tai Chi Styles have evolved through the generations. What I have heard the masters explain is that people generally teach what students want to learn. Since the needs and desires of the students have changed over the years, along with the culture and technology, the styles have changed, mostly in similar directions.

As for the specific issue of linking postures, I have also heard this about the practice of our Tai Chi ancestors, but don't recall if I read or heard this specifically about Yang Luchan.

This is not something many of my students would really care to do; however, I have a few students (in case I haven't mentioned it, I'm now teaching a class on my own at my Masonic Lodge) who - once we've finished learning the Standard form and understood it - seem open to approaching the art as more of a fighting system.

So I got the following idea: Write the postures of the Standard form on blank playing cards, which are then shuffled. Draw three cards at random and then attempt to integrate them as seamlessly as possible.

This would only apply to solo practice, not as sanshou - sanshou is by its nature relatively open-ended.

I'd be grateful for your thoughts.

Tai Chi should be fun and engage you. If what you propose does that, I would say to do it without reservation. I definitely do similar things for these reasons.

If your most important goal is truly to obtain Tai Chi fighting skill, then I think it is not advisable to ignore the path that the masters lay out for us. Who you decide is a master you want to follow is up to you.

"Playing" with single posture practice is still part of the traditional curriculum, but best approached through the medium of push hands. Why would you not move on to push hands after getting some mastery of the solo form? This can also make the solo form come alive even more. I have seen this repeatedly in myself and in some of my students.

I personally do not have a very high opinion of the external aspects of the Tai Chi postures if done with an external feel. I have a different opinion if they are approached with Tai Chi principles. I think there is a huge temptation to make Tai Chi movements work from an external perspective or even to "improve" them. I think that this has benefits in the short term, but is disastrous in the long term if the goal is to learn Tai Chi skills. Push hands can look like martially pointless, repetitive play, but is very serious in what it teaches us about energy. I just had an experience yesterday of how teaching through push hands can be transformative.

I think push hands is also fun on its own. Check out Master Yang Jun's DVD's on push hands for some instruction to get a sense of what is possible. There are also some video links that give a decent view of the curriculum. I would pay less attention to videos that are intended to show off the skills of particular practitioners without explaining what is going on. We have posted such links in the past, but if you have missed them, I can try to find a representative sample.

Take care,
Audi

[global village idiot]

Thanks for the insight, Audi! I really appreciate it.

I should clarify that I don't intend this to be anything like a substitute for push-hands. Far from it! I think anyone with any understanding of the art would say that push-hands done as the curriculum dictates is the best - if not the only - way we can really know whether we're right internally. It's fundamentally important and there's no real substitute for it. What I'll refer to for brevity's sake as the "card trick" could not possibly teach any such thing.

Rather, I see the principal benefit to the "card trick" as being somewhat related to something I read Yang Jun saying (at least I think it was him) in the Family's Instructor's guide (at least I think that's where I read it). He said he sometimes does a "formless form" wherein he does whatever posture strikes him at the moment, without worrying that it's not the move that comes next in any of the prescribed forms.

None of our current students are anywhere near that level of mastery. This is for a variety of reasons, the chief one being that most of them only "practice" the one time a week they're in class (we've had this discussion before) and in fact I've only begun doing the postures in such a way myself. The class I assist in is run by my colleague Jay, and I defer to his ideas on its structure and content. I wish we did more push-hands, but I will only suggest that to Jay - I won't make a big deal of it for obvious reasons. My own class at my Lodge is so new - 5 sessions total so far, all with beginner students - that no one in it can do the "first section" of the form (opening through cross-hands). I'm reluctant to spend time with them on push-hands until a majority are at least that far, which I think will be in about three weeks or so. This is a side-issue unrelated to the current discussion, except inasmuch as I know the "card trick" is absolutely inappropriate for these students at this time, no matter their goals.

Meanwhile, of the students in the class I assist in, who can at least follow us when we do the entire Standard form, they do one posture to the next with varying degrees of proficiency, but they have a difficult time conceptualizing the entire form as a sort of menu they can draw from indiscriminately. I know this because the first time Jay and I introduced the 22-posture Essential form to these students, they looked at us like we were Martians.

This got me thinking...the reason they looked at us like they did is because they see the form as being a continuous whole - and nothing else. It is a continuous whole, but it's also more than that, as the 22-posture Essential form demonstrates. I also saw it when, to use just one example, we began teaching the form and right off the bat they had the hardest time transitioning from "Grasp Bird's Tail" to "Part Horse's Mane." They knew "Single Whip" always follows "Grasp Bird's Tail" in the Standard form, and had difficulty making the transition to a different posture than the one they were used to.

Combine this insight with my Lodge students who ultimately want to learn the martial applications as I discussed above, as well as the nugget from the interview (I agree with you that it's not a part of the present curriculum and thanks by-the-way for the Family Tree - it's now saved to my computer), and that's where I came up with the "card trick" idea.

Bottom line is that I in no way whatsoever expect or intend it to substitute for anything in the standard curriculum (there's no way it could); nor do I presume to be able to improve on the form or curriculum itself. I envision it as nothing more than a way of demonstrating that within our art, there is more than one way the postures can be combined. That's really all the "card trick" can do. I also think it's inappropriate until the student has learned the entire Standard form and has demonstrated a fundamental understanding of the Ten Essentials, and I personally don't intend for it in my own class to take time that would otherwise be used for push-hands, because I want my students to be doing that a LOT more than we do in the other class.

Hope this clears up my thinking - I wish I could be more concise.

Best,
gvi

[Audi]

Greetings GVI,

I think I understand your words, but not the heart behind it. Your gut seems to be telling you something that I am missing. If I am to be as helpful as I might, let me try saying things in a different way.

There is nothing in the content of the interview that I particular disagree with; however, I am somewhat suspicious of what implications people might draw from it. It's like when people compare the speed or height of the various forms past masters have done. The facts are easy to ascertain; but the implications of those facts, not so much.

There is nothing wrong with form practice or single-movement practice. They are both tools that, as a default, should be in any Tai Chi practitioner's tool box. The problem comes in how to use both to best effect.

Solo practice teaches you about your own energy. Partner practice teaches you about the opponent's energy. But this is a Taiji relationship, like much else about Tai Chi theory and practice. The best way to understand the opponent's energy is through the gate of understanding your own energy first. The best way to test your understanding of your own energy is to work with a partner. There are many ways to do both.

For solo practice, we have practice with more movement and practice with less. A balance is good. Options include standing practice (or even sitting or lying down practice), stepping practice, several solo forms, single movement practice for fajin development, and weapons forms.

For partner practice, we have fixed step, several types of moving practice, and sparring. The sparring can be focused on a single movement or a series of movements or be completely free.

Generally, we advise starting with the Ten Essentials and the Traditional Form, but circumstances may require something else and that is fine. Even with "beginning" students, it is important sometime between the first day and the end of the first year of practice to know something about the application of each posture. That understanding will start of at a very crude level, but can become refined through more experience and time practicing. The purpose is not really to learn to be martially effective with the posture, but to train energy properly. Becoming martially effective comes later, after push hands.

One of the main obstacles to learning Tai Chi is the mental rigidity we bring to our motion. We know one way that seems to work and so are reluctant to shake things up and try something else. We are often even unaware that we are doing this.

I think your card trick in the right hands and for the right student(s) could be quite useful in this aspect. There are other "tricks" that some teachers use. I see no problem with experimenting a little.

The only real down side is that all postures do not connect together equally well without fundamental changes to the transitions. The form has a natural rhythm of yin-yang changes (open-close, up-down, left-right, etc.) that could be disturbed by randomly putting together postures. For example, doing White Crane Spreads Wings after Step Back to Ride the Tiger would be quite a challenge. On the other hand, maybe just such a challenge is needed by some to get a taste of what this issue is about.

For those who might want a preview of Tai Chi's martial side you can do some physical posture testing. Can your push really push? Can your press really press? Etc. I can give details if you want or need them. I do this quite often with Rollback, because it comes early in the form and many people only have a hazy idea or no idea at all about how it is theoretically being applied and how the energy works. Their incorrect mind intent is revealed in incorrect motion and incorrect structure.

You can also explore, with guidance, which postures form tight combinations and which probably are only incidentally connected. This can then feed back into your understanding of the form. For instance, do you actually link the Press to the Rollback, or do you just end one and start the other. This is actually part of one of the Ten Essentials. Again, I can give more details if desired.

I hope this helps.

Take care,
Audi

[ChiDragon]

Not long ago I read the following interview:

https://neigong.net/2008/10/29/an-inter ... ang-fukui/

In it, the following passage stuck out and resonated with me:

YF: Yang Ban Hou and Yang Chen Hou’s practices were both somewhat different from each other, as well as from modern practice. I think if they or their father were alive today and observed modern Taijiquan, they would not recognize much of what we call the Yang style Taijiquan.

Hi gvi,
I think this statement is an understatement. It is because the Yang style Taijiquan is very unique. I don't think that the modern style is any different from the past. All the basic forms are consisted in the original 108 form. It seems to me that all the basic moves are the replicas of the 108 form in the 24, 42, 58 forms and so on. Thus all the later or simplified versions still have the same basic moves but only practiced in different sequence.

[ChiDragon]

Not long ago I read the following interview:

https://neigong.net/2008/10/29/an-inter ... ang-fukui/

In it, the following passage stuck out and resonated with me:

So I got the following idea: Write the postures of the Standard form on blank playing cards, which are then shuffled. Draw three cards at random and then attempt to integrate them as seamlessly as possible.

This would only apply to solo practice, not as sanshou - sanshou is by its nature relatively open-ended.

I'd be grateful for your thoughts.

gvi

gvi,
Your idea had been done already in the lesser number forms, such as 24, 42, 58 and so on, you name it. The moves in those versions are in different sequence from one version to another. As you had said, the moves were integrated as seamlessly. This is a very good idea for someone who practiced in a small area. During practice, if a practitioner runs into a wall and has no place to go. Then, one can do the "repulse monkey" to move away from the wall. Then, continue to go back to pick up the original move somewhere.

Here is another idea, if you are tired of doing the same set of movements, then, you can do as exactly with the flash cards idea. Instead of using flash cards, you just do the move whatever comes into your mind. I have seen the Wudang Taoist had done it and, sometimes, repeating the same sequence at times. The prerequisite is that one must be very familiar with all the basic moves.

[fchai]

Hi GVI,
I have been away for a while and so have missed most of the discussion to date. However, your idea on the use of flash cards is, if I may say so, novel. The problem I foresee with this are the formulaic use of movements or postures without real world context and the likely incompatibility of some posture combinations because of this. I think you may have already identified this as a possibility.
In my practice I envision every posture and the associated transitioning movements as a seamless martial action of attack, defence, preparation, etc. In every movement you do you should have an awareness of where and how your "jin" shifts and manifests itself, what it is you are intending and how you are implementing it. It is about how you respond to where a possible external force or energy (threat) is being impressed or directed to or against you. It is also about being aware that your qi sinks to the dantian and your root is sound. If you follow the "Essence and Applications of Taijiquan", it is clear that the long form predicates on responding to attacks from various directions and multiple opponents and how each posture may be applied to counter these attacks. However, it is not a 'set in concrete' recipe and you should be flexible and versatile in responding to the external attack. In fact, you should aspire to be "formless", in that you respond without deliberation or conscious thought to the attack, just by "knowing" what comes naturally in a response based on what might be available and what opportunity arises. The training and practice you do with the long form should equip you to move in ways that are unexpected to the ignorant or unwary. You should be able to use your whole body, arms, legs, elbows, fingers, knees, palm, fist, shoulder, etc. and come from any direction, be it low, high, side, chest, etc.
Push hands allows you to develop your awareness of the external force or jin directed at you and how it may be manifesting itself. It should also allow you to learn how to "hide" your own 'jin' so as to surprise and confuse your opponent. However, it is not sparring! The san shou is for this aspect of martial training.
I hope my meagre contribution and knowledge of this matter provides you some further insights on your journey. Keep it up. You are certainly asking the right questions and thinking about Taiji more deeply than many that I know.
Take care,
Frank

[global village idiot]

Hi Frank!

Thanks for the response – I’m glad to see the discussion continuing.

It’s apparent that you & I are very much on the same page as regards what tai chi is all about, as well particularly regarding the importance and intent of push-hands. I should also say that while I appreciate the kind words concerning my inquiries, flattery will get you nowhere. I already have a fat enough head as it is!

Many of my students have no interest in the art as a martial art. I find this presents a challenge, because it’s sometimes difficult to put the energies and intent of the postures/transitions in a context that’s meaningful for them. It takes a bit of imagination to come up with an application that’s not only consistent with the “jin” of the posture/transition, but that won’t just go in one ear and out the other. If I fail to do so, I'm not teaching tai chi - I'm just teaching dance steps.

For example, I described Single Whip to them as “trying to turn the kitchen light on and put the groceries on the counter while simultaneously avoiding stepping on the cat.” Likewise, I saw how they were doing (or rather botching) “Needle to Sea Bottom;” and after realizing that this batch of students, on this evening, were all female, I told them to imagine they were doing the posture in a miniskirt in front of a bunch of third graders. They were FLAWLESS after that! The kicks translate into trying clothes on in a sketchy dressing booth, Brush Knee and Cloud Hands involve navigating a store on “Black Friday” and so on.

So I’ll use gardening or shopping or housework metaphors to “de-weaponize” the postures for them, though I don’t go out of my way to do so. Some postures don’t seem to need it – they take to “Punch Groin” with an almost disturbing enthusiasm.

Still, there seems to be a value in doing so. I’ve found push-hands to be somewhat easier with such students, because unlike some of my students in my Lodge, they don’t have to “de-tune” the sparring impulse and approach it as an investigation of their and their partner’s energy and centeredness, though there’s still the tendency with them to approach it as a simple motion exercise and leave the intent out.

It’s a hard balance to strike, but it leads to better understanding on both their and my part, and it gives ‘em what they’re paying us for.

gvi

[fchai]

Hi GVI,

Your approach is interesting and as they say in the classics, "Horses for courses!". I must confess that I am not inclined to de-weaponise the movements in Taiji to something less martial and more mundane. However, that said, perhaps your approach may bear more fruit than mine.

As I often say to my students, I am not teaching them Taiji to become martial art exponents who can kick butt. However, if they do not know the martial aspects of the Taiji movements and postures, they will not be able to know how to move, why they move in such a way, how their intent determines their physical action, why their qi sinks to the dantian, how their breathing supports their movements and their manifestation of 'jin', to develop their 'jin' and perceive it as an energy field that flows throughout each movement ceaselessly, what is meant by 'song' and how this enhances your capacity to respond and also manifest 'jin' explosively, etc. With this understanding and knowledge, a practitioner can adjust their execution of the form to suit their own physical capabilities and also adjust the transition movements to suit their intent, without any degradation of the correctness of their form. So very often folks forget to pay attention to the transitioning movements, as these are also important and could influence aspects of your 'intent' from one posture to the next. However, that said, at the start (which can last some years) many just do the movements by rote but hopefully over time and diligent practice will come enlightenment. Hallelujah!

I recall the first 'Karate Kid" movie where the kid was told to wash a car by his karate master. The action, which seemed quite innocuous and pointless at first, was subsequently brought into perspective as the action to make a defensive block. Something like 'cloud hands'. So, your approach may actually be a masterful approach similar to that of the 'Karate Kid'.

Take care,
Frank

[global village idiot]

However, that said, perhaps your approach may bear more fruit than mine.

Only in context. It's not a universal thing. I only have to use creative metaphors with the students I share with my colleague Jay - my own students at my Lodge seem to grasp the concepts exactly as you describe them.

I suspect demographics have something to do with it. Most of my "shared" students are older women who spent a lifetime in careers such as teaching, nursing, etc. It's been my experience that the majority (by no means all) the people in such fields are those who simply cannot think in terms of "martial" anything, and find the very idea itself unnerving. I don't know which comes first - does a lifetime in a given profession lend one to a certain way of thinking, or are certain types of people naturally inclined to take to certain kinds of work?

It's a "chicken or egg" question, I suppose.

The practical upshot for me is that when you tell these types of students that "Twin Fists Through the Ears" can kill someone or turn him into a gibbering vegetable if executed flawlessly, it's even money they stop coming to class. They don't want to think of tai chi - or its teachers - as having the potential for violence.

Being a lifelong soldier and therefore someone who by definition has a potential for violence, I won't pretend to understand their worldview. But there's no denying these people exist, or that they have value, or that they deserve their money's worth as students. So I "de-weaponize" when I have to.

Comparing these people with my own students at my Lodge, the latter are far more open to tai chi as a martial art and they enter into it as such. The gender mix is much more even; most are blue-collar workers (millwrights, mechanics, a security guard etc.); several are veterans, and as a group, they're younger. I really don't have to "de-weaponize" anything for them, though I sometimes let them know that tai chi has broader applications and effects outside martial arts.

It makes it easier to teach and communicate concepts with them. Just the same, I'm grateful I have the challenges my "shared" students present me. I like to think that challenging students make for a better teacher - they're training me just as I'm training them!

gvi

[global village idiot]

It's funny you should mention "Karate Kid."

Day-before-yesterday, I was with my "shared" students and we were all warming up with qi gong. We go in a circle and each person chooses which exercise they'd like to do. I don't do this with my students at my Lodge because they aren't familiar enough with any given exercise - for now I have to lead them.

Anyway, as my intent for the evening was for the students to focus on "Song Yao," I wanted to do a qi gong that lent itself well to it. So I chose "Grind corn" from the Temple Exercises. One of our students, a first-grade teacher, had always had difficulty figuring out how to coordinate her hands with the body movement. I told her to imagine she had two cloths in her hands and was dusting a coffee table.

Apparently I said "the Magic Words," because she instantly started doing the exercise correctly and smoothly.

[MASSIVE DIGRESSION FOLLOWS]
She's an interesting case-study as a student. She had been the founder's secretary for years and had learned haphazardly under him. She continued coming to class after he retired, but I got the impression she was always aloof. She never seemed to learn to apply energy properly, or to care about structure - who knows, maybe she thought these things would all happen by magic...

Anyway, it took about a month of working with her - I try to spend time with each student individually - and within the last few weeks, she's seemed to really open up to learning and applying herself. I don't know what happened to effect the change, but now all of a sudden she's grasping concepts, asking questions, working much harder...a real model student!

But she's still utterly uninterested in anything martial; and when I or my colleague bring it up, I can literally watch her face and body language "close off." It couldn't be more obvious that she's NOT paying any attention at that point. This part of her has not changed; and if my theory about people and their lines of work holds up, she probably won't.

So there's this dynamic where I have a student who wants to learn and is paying real money to learn from us, but who will absolutely not respond to instruction of the normal type. I have to strike a balance between validating her reluctance and getting the point across - this is where the "creativity" and "de-weaponizing" comes in.

And she's not the only one. I have another student who was extremely uncomfortable (to the point of real, unfeigned tears) with anything even hinting of the violent aspect of tai chi. She wouldn't even give a proper push during push-hands, she had such an aversion to what she saw as "confrontation." I don't know why she was so uncomfortable and don't think it's my place to ask, but it is my job to notice it and work with it. I've seen the same thing in many Soldiers, if you can believe it!

Took several weeks and very small steps to get her to set foot outside her comfort zone - pushing her too hard put her in a "panic zone" where no learning took place. I had to be very careful in letting her know that push-hands wasn't "fighting" - that it was an investigation into oneself and their partner, a sort of conversation, and a test of whether we're doing things right. She was scared to give herself permission to be "aggressive" toward her partner, so I ended up almost exclusively being her push-hands partner and playing the part of doors, shopping carts, tree branches, curtains - whatever it took to get her to interact properly. After a LONG time, she began to feel how things should go, what the postures and energies should feel like, what "right" and "not-right" felt like, and finally the spirit of learning/discovery won over her reluctance. I knew I'd made progress with her when she only took an hour to be convinced to do "Step Forward, Parry & Punch" at me, rather than into empty space, and with only an "unreasonable" amount of internal agitation - not a complete internal shut-down.

I don't have any of these kinds of challenges with my Lodge students, but I think these "challenging" students are forcing me to grow as an instructor.

gvi