Greetings All,
Fast-forward to a few months ago when it was my great good fortune to be put in touch with an instructor who is no less than a disciple of Yang Jun himself. I've since spent about five hours training with him and I've learned more in those five hours than I had in the previous year!
I remember walking out of the studio after our first session together thinking to myself, "And here all along I thought I knew how to do tai chi." My colleague said the exact same thing out loud when he came for the second session, and he's been under our retired instructor for the last ten years!
But guess what? We do know how to do tai chi. We did before we met him, only now we do it better. What we had was our best tai chi for the time being, but it improved. we're still doing our best tai chi for the time being, but we both have lots of room to improve.
And then THAT will be our best tai chi.
All this to say that, as long as you're giving it your best effort, it's okay to make mistakes and inculcate habits you're going to have to get rid of. If you're doing your best tai chi for the time being, you're doing tai chi!
GVI, it’s great that you have found an instructor. You really seem to have a great attitude and already a good base of knowledge. Either the US Army accepts good people or turns good people out. Or maybe a little bit of both.
It seems like you have hooked up with someone great, but if there is any advice I can help with, do not hesitate to ask.
I am impressed. You articulate very well and clearly. If I was half as articulate, my students would probably have progressed further than they have to date.
Frank, I would love to take credit for what I articulate, but I am mostly regurgitating things I have hear from Master Yang. One of the things that hooked me on his version of the form and his practice with the very clear and straightforward way he would articulate things and the amount of detail he and his grandfather have given. It gives great clarity on what to work on and why.
Sometimes I wonder why many still turn up after all these years and only show marginal improvement. I suspect that they enjoy the "community" and the exercise. The majority show little expression of 'qi' or 'spirit' and some even have difficulty in remembering the forms and sequence. I know also that the majority do not practice outside of the class, and nothing I say makes any difference. Perhaps, the fact that my classes are free to everyone who is a member of the organisation I volunteer in, makes it of "less value". Afterall they do not have to pay for the privilege.
I would like to strongly commend you on both your ethics and realism. It is not easy to be clear about both.
It is a conundrum that I cannot change and will have to persevere with. However, all is not doom and gloom as there are a handful perhaps a tad more, who show some potential and could be developed further in advancing their skills and knowledge in the future. Anyway, I personally gain benefit from the teaching as it encourages me to continue to improve my practice and my knowledge of Taiji.
I once faced a not too dissimilar situation, but with somewhat less obligation. I decided there were three choices: persevere in silence, try subtly to shift the direction of practice in the direction I preferred, or to leave the situation. I ended up trying to do the second, but other commitments ended up forcing me to choose the last one.
If the second choice is your most likely option, consider being very specific and focused on what you practice on in class. Some students can become more motivated when they discover more depths to the study and find that improvement makes the postures feel better. Of course, some people just don’t care about working in class and want to destress or socialize.
This weekend I was called upon to teach Tai Chi for one hour at a church retreat focusing on “using spiritual power.” Almost no one had any experience with Tai Chi, and my hour ended up being reduced to 30-40 minutes because of scheduling delays. I thought I did a barely adequate job, but got favorable feedback from a number of participants.
What I taught was a few warm ups, the first four of the Ten Essentials, some standing mediation, weight shifting, heel-to-ball-to-toe-bend knee, and Cloud Hands stepping to both sides. What seemed to motivate people to perhaps pursue further study was that they felt they could do it, they had something tangible to work on, and it made sense to make them feel better.
Just a thought.
As I read the table it suggests (to me) that the learning of the 103, 16 and the 13-Hand Forms all start from Approximate Practice Rank-1. If as you suggest this is not likely and that you
…would be quite surprised if it is really advocating learning all three forms for Rank 1 students”
I would welcome any suggestions on how to interpret this table more correctly.
Now that I see the chart, I can say that what it shows is when it is appropriate to start various parts of the curriculum and how many years it would approximately take to reach the level required as specified by our ranking system. It is appropriate to start learning Tai Chi with the Traditional Form, the 13-Posture Form, or the 16-Posture Form, but only one is “required.” Of these three, we definitly recommend the Traditional Form unless time and memory concerns do not allow it.
Charles,
The chart definitely does not show what is required or even what is recommended. For instance, we have two additional forms--the Essential Form and the Tai Chi Kong--that do not appear in the chart at all. We also have the Quivering Staff (抖干) exercises that some have learned. These are things that are appropriate for some people in some situations, but are definitely not required to someone starting out with the Traditional Form.
In other words, a beginner can start with any of 5 different forms and practice them all life long. in reality, the Traditional Form has the most complete content and should be the default; but if you start with any of the others, there is no problem. What you should not do, however, is learn all five together or focus on learning the four shorter ones before learning the Traditional Form.
Since then we have worked through the 16-Hand Form and the first section of the 103 Form at what I would suggest is at a very, very, very (yes three very’) ‘Approximate Level’. I continue to refine our study plan and find ourselves at a crossroad. Do we continue to learn the 103-Form (section 2 and 3) to the end or do we refine our practice as outlined in the ‘Approximate Practice Ranks 1-3’ and as you have suggested before proceeding with learning more of the form.
Thank you for this and the description of your background. That makes it easier to give concrete recommendations.
If you have time and the interest, you should continue to practice the 16-Posture form; however, you should make learning the entire 103 Traditional Form your priority. It is a much better general tool.
There is a natural tension between correcting and improving the postures you already know and learning new ones. I can say more about this if anyone is interested, but I would place more emphasis on getting through the entire form than in trying to make every posture perfect.
To give a concrete recommendation, learn an average of one posture per week. I have heard that the traditional form has 37 distinct postures that, with repetitions, make up the 103 postures. If you learn one posture a week, using Master Yang Jun's video as a guide, I think you can get through the form in a year. You have to fit repeated postures in somewhere, however.
Next, the training must follow a pattern. It need not be rigid at all, but the class and the trainer must all know what's expected either before they arrive or shortly thereafter. In our class, we have the following:
o a bowing-in,
o some qigong,
o work on the solo form, broken down between beginners and intermediate students,
o a section of weapons, push-hands or "self-defense,"
o a group meditation period, and
o bowing-out
This is a sound plan that GVI laid out and that I cannot find fault with, but let me give another by way of further example. Sometimes it easier to work from a specific example to understand what might be revised into something serviceable than to talk in generalities.
For example, you could have a two-hour class divided into 8 components averaging 15 minutes each, but in fact varying between 5 minutes and 30 minutes in length. Here are the eight components:
1. Warm up and/or preliminary exercises
2. Review and performance of the 16-Posture From
3. Discussion of one of the Ten Essentials or other methods (such as walking technique, breathing, or relaxing), and practice of parts of the 16-Posture Form that show specific examples of where the Essentials or other methods apply or are easy to forget
4. Clarification and practice of postures already learned from either form
5. Introduction of a new posture to learn from the Traditional Form
6. Rest break
7. Review of the last group of postures recently learned with emphasis on the next-to-last posture learned and “instant” review of the posture learned in this practice section.
8. Go through the entire form learned so far.
This is probably too much to do regularly, but gives an idea of what you can cover.
I would welcome any thoughts or comments on how to balance the learning more of the sequence with refining the practice of the sequence that one has already learnt.
There is no right answer to this, and I think the method of teaching has changed from what it may have been traditionally. I think it is important to learn the sequence fairly well. It is the tool that is the key to most further learning. In learning and practicing the sequence, it is inevitable that you will make mistakes, including “serious” internal ones. You will be in a race against time to learn the external parts of the form before you cement in too many bad habits. But without good familiarity with the tool that is the sequence, you will find it virtually impossible to focus on more “internal” things.
Off the top of my head, the few things that I think are important at Rank 1, besides the sequence, are:
1. anything to do with the legs, including the stance requirements and walking technique, and especially anything to do with knee placement. This is one of the few areas where safety can easily be compromised by bad technique.
2. How the torso should twist left and right. There is more to it than this, but one has to begin somewhere
Things on which to increase focus in preparation for Rank 2 are:
1. Proper relaxation (an easily misunderstood technique)
2. Abdominal breathing
3. Waist coordination with the arms and legs
One good aspect of the Association’s form is that there are now thousands of people doing it around the world and trying to do it virtually identically. Because of that, you can asking incredibly detailed questions about the form and get solid and specific answers about how things should be done and why.
Take care,
Audi