I am copying below private correspondence on this topic between Audi and myself with his permission and I hope that I hope that everyone reading this will find the points discussed relevant and useful.
Hi Simon,
Below is the email I sent you before. It has more comments than what I was prepared to post without getting a better feel for what you wanted. Let me know if you would prefer to switch this exchange to the board and get feedback from other people. Feel free to transfer the pertinent parts to the board if you prefer.
I would also like to add that some Tai Chi players seem to like detailed critiques and other do not. I am one that does, but rarely find situations where people are willing to give it to me straight up and at length. I have framed my comments below as if I were noting issues in pictures of myself.
By the way, as I re-read my earlier email, I notice that my reference to a "bannister" may be even less clear than I thought. The perspective I describe is of a person standing backward on some stairs with the left hand sliding down a bannister on the left.
Take care,
Audi
Hi Simon,
I saw your recent post on the Yang Family board about photos of your postures. You're form looks great, but you are certainly a brave soul.
. I can barely stand to look at my own pictures, let alone invite others to do so. Since you are bravely asking for comments, I will try to follow Bob's lead and honour your request.
I feel awkward posting something on the board that might seem like criticism, so I thought I would send an email instead. I hope that is okay. If you want to quote some of my comments to reply on the board and continue the discussion there, I would not mind. Or, if you would prefer, we can keep this by email. I must confess, however, that I do not check my email regularly.
I once had a fantastic experience when a teacher took my form apart posture by posture. It was quite humbling, but also transformational. At the same time I was told that my postures where quite "standard," I received specific corrections for everying single posture except the Preparation Posture, Golden Rooster (Left), and the Closing posture. Please take my comments in that spirit.
From your earlier posts and the pictures, it seems that your form is very close to what the Association teaches, but there are differences. Since I do not feel qualified to state what is good Tai Chi or bad Tai Chi, I will try only to point out where I have significant doubts or could not defend your particular choices.
Lan Chiao Wei/Grasp Bird's Tail:
Your spirit looks fantastic, but the focus seems to be on your left hand. Is that your intention?
Why do you lift your left hand so high? Where are you focusing your energy, or what is the application you envision? It seems that your choice is driven by your gaze, rather than the other way around.
Your right elbow and palm seem to have a focus of pushing to the rear at the angle of your rear leg. Is this the energy you want to manifest? We show Pluck/Ts'ai with the palm flatter, as if pulling an arm backward.
Peng:
We use different Jin points than you seem to show here, so it is difficult for me to relate fully. It seems that your Jin point is in the right palm. Is your left palm also focused on the same point? It seems lower and a little to the left.
Your spirit again looks great, but do you mean to focus it on your right hand?
Pai Hao Liang Shih/White Crane Cools its Wings.:
This posture seems significantly higher than the preceding ones.
You have your right arm in the shape of a parenthesis, whereas we do it more rounded, more like the bend in a "c". With us, it also ends up directly over the head, rather than to the right.
I am not entirely sure how the left palm should be oriented, but I think I have the Tiger's Mouth face more forward, rather than the middle finger. My way makes my elbow feel more "down." I also seat the wrist slightly more, so that the palm and fingers are at least flat.
It is hard to see the exact relationship between your feet, but we place them so that they would be touching the opposites sides of an imaginary string bisecting your body front to back. Again, it is hard to tell, but your foot placement seems wider and seems to pull your left hip slightly lower than your right.
Tanbien/Single Whip:
Your spirit again looks fantastic.
Your left knee looks like it is just slightly too bent, but with your evident leg strength you might be able to get away with this. I would think though, that your Bow Stances should have a more consistent knee bend.
We perform this posture with the right wrist more or less at throat height. Yours seems quite high.
We would also attempt more bend in the right wrist, with less curve in the fingers. I remember Yang Zhenduo would always say at seminars not to "pinch," but simply to bring the fingers together.
You might want to extend the fingers in your left palm slightly more to show more energy and spirit.
Ti Shou Shang Shih/Raise Hands:
I can't see anything to comment on, except that your spirit seems to show more "up-and-down in the arms, whereas we might show more "side-to-side." To be sure, I would want to see how you "attacked" the final position.
Hsia Fei Shih/Diaonal Flying:
Your body seems quite open to the side. We would have the left shoulder more forward, although not square to the direction of the right arm.
Also, is your right palm pointing in line with your right knee? It is hard to see, but it might be "over-rotated"?
I teach people to hold their left palm as if it had been sliding down a bannister parallel with the right leg and knee, so that the palm ends up tilted upward and more in line (left to right) with the right thigh. Yours seems to be pushing behind, rather than showing "Pluck/Ts'ai" energy. Yang Jun talks about keeping the left hand "in front of the body."
I have run out of time, but hope this is helpful. Let me know if you would like me to continue.
Take care,
Audi
Dear Audi,
Thanks a lot for taking the time and trouble to comment on my form postures in such detail. I'm really grateful for this and I'll respond to your points one by one, so I've copied the relevant part of your email below and will answer each part. Your comments are all very relevant and also I have to say that your reply and those of others have actually given me a lot of encouragement as I was worried that a lot more would actually be 'wrong' as it were ...
In a message dated 03/08/2007 19:03:59 GMT Standard Time,
apeal@patmedia.net writes:
Lan Chiao Wei/Grasp Bird's Tail:
Your spirit looks fantastic, but the focus seems to be on your left hand. Is that your intention?
Why do you lift your left hand so high? Where are you focusing your energy, or what is the application you envision? It seems that your choice is driven by your gaze, rather than the other way around.
Your right elbow and palm seem to have a focus of pushing to the rear at the angle of your rear leg. Is this the energy you want to manifest? We show Pluck/Ts'ai with the palm flatter, as if pulling an arm backward.
I hold the left hand so high because, simply, that is what I was taught to do by Grandmaster Lu. In nearly all of his positions, the attacking hand is held either with the finger tips parallel to the eyes or if the hand is for instance in a ward off position as here, then the hand is held such that if it was rotated, then the finger tips would be in line with the eyes. He is very particular about this. The application I am envisaging is is an internal block with the left hand under the opponent's right armpit and then pulling the opponent's right wrist down and back with the intention of putting his arm under pressure at the elbow. As for the position of my right hand, I have in fact modified what I was taught here in order to bring it more in line with pictures in photos of Yang Zhen Duo and Yang Cheng Fu. I think you'd be surprised if you saw Master Lu in the posture, as his right hand is even further back than mine in Lan Chiao Wei - in fact at about 20 degrees below the horizontal!
Peng:
We use different Jin points than you seem to show here, so it is difficult for me to relate fully. It seems that your Jin point is in the right palm. Is your left palm also focused on the same point? It seems lower and a little to the left.
Your spirit again looks great, but do you mean to focus it on your right hand?
Yes, my focus is on the right palm but also on the left as applying pressure to the front of the opponent's upper arm while the right is in ward off behind it. I was taught to have the left hand about three inches from the palm of the right, not behind the wrist as I think the Yangs themselves do, and with the middle finger of the left hand in line with the centre of the right palm. I have found that if I concentrate on the acupressure points in that finger tip and in the centre of the right palm, I feel a very strong connection between the two and also warmth.
Pai Hao Liang Shih/White Crane Cools its Wings.:
This posture seems significantly higher than the preceding ones.
You have your right arm in the shape of a parenthesis, whereas we do it more rounded, more like the bend in a "c". With us, it also ends up directly over the head, rather than to the right.
I am not entirely sure how the left palm should be oriented, but I think I have the Tiger's Mouth face more forward, rather than the middle finger. My way makes my elbow feel more "down." I also seat the wrist slightly more, so that the palm and fingers are at least flat.
It is hard to see the exact relationship between your feet, but we place them so that they would be touching the opposites sides of an imaginary string bisecting your body front to back. Again, it is hard to tell, but your foot placement seems wider and seems to pull your left hip slightly lower than your right.
Again, I am aware of this difference you point out between the way I have been taught this movement and the final posture in Yang family photos and videos that I've watched on YouTube. Master Lu's right hand is higher in this posture than the Yangs'. I once tried to adopt the Yangs' more C shaped posture of the right arm in one of Master Lu's classes and he immediately pounced on this and told me it was wrong and that I should have the right hand higher! Certainly the high right hand reflects the application of blocking the opponent's attacking arm from below and then really throwing it away upwards with an accompanying rising of the body to give added momentum to make his arm really fly away. Also, Master Lu brings the left knee up high, to waist height in Pai Hao Liang Shih as the right arm splits away upwards and the application is to knee the opponent in the bollocks while the right wrist throws his arm away upwards. The foot is then set down as the Yangs do it, with, and he's very specific about this, just the very outside edge of the very tip of the left big toe touching the ground very lightly. The left hand I have been taught my Master Lu should be one fist's width away from the left thigh and parallel with it. The body only then begins to sink when the following Lu Shi Au Bu commences. So again I just have to plead, well - this is the way I was taught it! I take your point about the relative alignment of my feet here and the analogy of the string and I will work on correcting this and I'm grateful to you for pointing it out as I really hadn't thought about that ever.
Tanbien/Single Whip:
Your spirit again looks fantastic.
Your left knee looks like it is just slightly too bent, but with your evident leg strength you might be able to get away with this. I would think though, that your Bow Stances should have a more consistent knee bend.
We perform this posture with the right wrist more or less at throat height. Yours seems quite high.
We would also attempt more bend in the right wrist, with less curve in the fingers. I remember Yang Zhenduo would always say at seminars not to "pinch," but simply to bring the fingers together.
You might want to extend the fingers in your left palm slightly more to show more energy and spirit.
Again, I can only make the same point as justification for this! Namely (you must be sick of hearing the same old record by now) - well, that's how I was taught it. Again, Master Lu is really insistent about the position of the right hand being rather higher than the Yangs do it. He's very fussy about the right hand position and when I asked him for further specification to help me keep it aligned as he would want it, he said the top of the right wrist must be in line with the top of the right ear. That's how specific he was. As for the left hand, according to him, this is held such that you must look through the 'V' of the forefinger and thumb as through the 'V' of a gun sight. Having read Yang Zhen Duo's copiously illustrated book, 'Yang Style Taijiquan' and of course Yang Cheng Fu's book translated by Louis, I can of course easily notice the lower position of the right arm adopted by the Yangs themselves. I've tried introducing this lower position into my form practice but I find it just feels unbalanced for me, however authentic it is. I prefer, having tried both, to do it Master Lu's way as I find the body feels more balanced with the top of the right wrist and the tips, e of the left fingers on the same level. The body then really sinks into the posture and it feels very much as if I am suspended like a marionette puppet. With the right arm more horizontal I feel a strong disconnection of the right side of my body. The higher right hand position probably makes the right wrist appear as if it is not sufficiently bent, but I can assure you that my wrist joint is actually bent as far down as I can in this photo but of course with the right arm higher, the fingers can't point down to the ground as they can with the right wrist held at throat height.
Ti Shou Shang Shih/Raise Hands:
I can't see anything to comment on, except that your spirit seems to show more "up-and-down in the arms, whereas we might show more "side-to-side." To be sure, I would want to see how you "attacked" the final position.
Here, Master Lu emphasises the application as being grasping the punching arm of the attacker and then pushing it away, in contrast to Shou Hui Pipa, which is approached with a more rounded rather than a pushing movement as Shou Hui Pipa is breaking the opponent's arm at the elbow, not pushing him away with his arm.
Hsia Fei Shih/Diaonal Flying:
Your body seems quite open to the side. We would have the left shoulder more forward, although not square to the direction of the right arm.
Also, is your right palm pointing in line with your right knee? It is hard to see, but it might be "over-rotated"?
I teach people to hold their left palm as if it had been sliding down a bannister parallel with the right leg and knee, so that the palm ends up tilted upward and more in line (left to right) with the right thigh. Yours seems to be pushing behind, rather than showing "Pluck/Ts'ai" energy. Yang Jun talks about keeping the left hand "in front of the body."
I think it's just the camera angle as far as the right hand is concerned. In fact, just to be perfectly sure, I've just jumped up from the computer and quickly gone into the posture and my right arm is indeed aligned with the right knee quite unconsciously. So I think in this case it's the camera angle or maybe my friend took the picture later than I thought he had done and was actually coming out of the posture and was caught just doing that, I don't know. As for the left (sorry about playing the same old record yet again), but this is just how I was taught it. Again, Master Lu, as ever, was very precise about the position of the left hand here. It should be parallel with the left thigh, and a fist's width away from it. The application is more or less the same as Yeh Ma Feng Tung, but with a turn of course.
I'm very grateful for your comments about my spirit in the form and I'm amazed that this has come through in the photos. Certainly, the form I have been taught is application based and those slight differences from the way the Yangs do things in detail reflects maybe a slightly different application, or possibly might even derive from a slightly earlier phase in the evolution of the Yang Cheng Fu form, which of course Yang Cheng Fu was constantly tinkering with in details.
Once again, thanks a lot for taking the time and trouble to comment. With your agreement, I'd like to publish your message and this reply on the Forum as I think everyone could benefit from your comments, not just myself, but I won't do this without your final permission, so please just drop me a line to confirm finally whether that's o.k. or not.
Best wishes,
Simon.
Dear Simon,
Here are some comments I had with respect to your replies. I have marked citations from your earlier comments with quotes and italics.
Ward Off Left:
"The application I am envisaging is is an internal block with the left hand under the opponent's right armpit and then pulling the opponent's right wrist down and back with the intention of putting his arm under pressure at the elbow."
I am a little puzzled how you can lock the elbow from this position, but I think I understand your description.
"As for the position of my right hand, I have in fact modified what I was taught here in order to bring it more in line with pictures in photos of Yang Zhen Duo and Yang Cheng Fu."
I am not sure from your words how you want to "standardize" your movements, but let me describe what Yang Zhenduo and Yang Jun do. For both Ward Off Left and Right, they use the middle of the inside of the lead forearm as the Jin point, not the wrist or palm. In Ward Off Left, the left arm is trying to point due west. For me, my left wrist reaches further than the outside of my right foot. The left armpit must, however, remain open, which imparts a slight curve from shoulder to elbow. I describe the feeling almost as if holding the arm stretched out in the way a waiter might drape a cloth across his arm or a matador might hold out a cape. The left palm faces slightly upward in order to expose the Jin point. The right hand is positioned as if pulling a towel across and down from the Jin point in the left arm. Since the body is quite open to the side, the sensation is that you are doing this on the right side of the body.
Ward Off Right:
"I was taught to have the left hand about three inches from the palm of the right, not behind the wrist as I think the Yangs themselves do, and with the middle finger of the left hand in line with the centre of the right palm."
The application that we show in our standard form is to use the middle of the inside of the right forearm even with the midline and under the point of the opponent's elbow. The hollow of the left palm is then pushing down on the opponen'ts wrist.
White Crane:
"I take your point about the relative alignment of my feet here and the analogy of the string and I will work on correcting this and I'm grateful to you for pointing it out as I really hadn't thought about that ever. "
To check your alightment, pivot your back foot so that it is parallel to your front foot and then slide your front back even with your back foot. Both feet should be touching and in line. If you do the same exercise in a bow stance, your feet will end up shoulder width apart.
Single Whip:
" I've tried introducing this lower position into my form practice but I find it just feels unbalanced for me, however authentic it is. I prefer, having tried both, to do it Master Lu's way as I find the body feels more balanced with the top of the right wrist and the tips, e of the left fingers on the same level. The body then really sinks into the posture and it feels very much as if I am suspended like a marionette puppet. With the right arm more horizontal I feel a strong disconnection of the right side of my body."
You give a nice description here. To me, what you describe seems much more oriented to the front than what I have been taught. The feeling for my form, as I understand it, is of one sending energy equally forward and backward. The balance I find is in sinking through the Jin point in my left palm heel and stretching upward into the Jin point in the outside of my right wrist. The left arm curves downward, and the right arm curves upward. The two together form an S curve, the left fingers even with the right wrist, and the left wrist even with the right fingers.
"The higher right hand position probably makes the right wrist appear as if it is not sufficiently bent, but I can assure you that my wrist joint is actually bent as far down as I can in this photo but of course with the right arm higher, the fingers can't point down to the ground as they can with the right wrist held at throat height."
If this is the case, then I think you may be pinching your fingers, rather than gathering them together. Try exposing the pads of your fingers more so that the knuckles are straighter. As for me, the hand position I achieve would allow me to "peck" on a table top with the pads of my fingers with all of the knuckles supporting the energy and without the fingernails interfering.
"With your agreement, I'd like to publish your message and this reply on the Forum as I think everyone could benefit from your comments, not just myself, but I won't do this without your final permission, so please just drop me a line to confirm finally whether that's o.k. or not."
Feel free to copy any of the relevant portions of our exchange to the board. Thanks for your consideration.
Regards,
Audi