Yang Family Tai Chi Discussion Board

Hi Everyone,

Don't forget the 88-form, that is in fact the long form, more or less unaltered.

Marc, I am not familiar with this form or the Li Family's 81-from. Is the 88-form symmetrical?

This discussion has made me wonder what I will be missing if I do not go on to the long form.

One thing I forgot to say is that I do wonder whether simply doing one repetition of a short form is sufficient practice for those who really want to study the art in depth. I think that some Tai Chi is much better than no Tai Chi, but 20 minutes of Tai chi is probably more than twice as good as doing only 10 minutes. If your typical home practice is just one repetition of a short form, this might not be the best foundation to go deeply into the art.

You can do a great deal with even just one posture, let alone 24 or more; however, I personally do not know anyone who seems to have made great progress using predominantly short practice sessions. The issue is not the length or the character of the form, but the length of the practice. Consistently practicing only one repetition of a fast long form would raise the same concerns for me as one repetition of a short form. If time and interest permit, we actually encourage the goal of doing three repetitions in a row (each of 20-30 minutes) to get a great benefit, but I know few people who can manage this kind of time commitment.

I think also that the better forms have a very deep logic to them, sometimes developed over several generations. Most of the features of these forms are quite deliberate and should not easily be dismissed as unnecessary, ineffective, or insufficient. This does not mean, however, that there is only one valid way to train or that everyone should like every flavor of Tai Chi.

Lastly, I think it seems to have been fairly common for practitioners who start off practicing short forms to decide at some later time to seek out long forms in order to deepen their practice. I think only a minority of advanced practitioners encourage doing only short forms for their entire careers.

I still practice it almost everyday both styles of walking.

Do you prefer doing the walking to doing the form, or do you do it in addition to the form? Does it include hand movements, or just footwork?

From my limited understanding of tai chi the form it's self contains the stretching nessicary to stretch the tendants and build up strength in the legs. I think most American teachers teach the 70/30 principle in the stance and this is why you precieve the need to stretch, and to do leg exercises to build up strength. however my teach is a very avid teacher of 100% of the weight on the leg where the center is supposed to be because 1, your center can not be clear without this, and 2 it builds up the leg strength. I think that many teachers adapted the 70/30 because the 100/0 is very hard to maintain. Also furthermore the movements of the tranditional long form have the stretching nesesscary to strech the legments in the right fashion as long as you do not shift your weight before turning the foot. Alot of instructors will teach shifting your center back and then turning the foot, while this is easier it does not achieve the purpose it was intended to which is stretch the leggiments. If you keep the weight over your foot and turn from your center it achieves this as well as building stability balance and an increased center intention. I don't know if im making sense, however I went from learning the 24 form where I was taught the way most modern students are and I felt like I reached a point where I was stuck, however once I started training under the teacher I train under now my level increased 10fold just from changing a few of the principles and the way they are applied, as well as forgetting the 24 form i practiced for 6 years, and switching to the traditional long form. I will tell you doing it the traditional way it was taught is much harder than anything I have ever done in my life, but the benefits in the rooting and and jing and the power hearing are increased drastically, I know this was really sparatic but its late and I was just surfing the board.

I so appreciate your observation re: how the form is taught and the efficacy of the 24 movement form.

It seems to me that whether the form is taught as "long form" or "short form", the challenge you are pointing out is that people know the movements, without knowing any fundamentals. I have observed this same pattern in my experience in the past 10 years as I have learned the Yang long form from a variety of instructors. Some had private schools and some taught in health clubs and YMCA's.

Your description of people knowing the hand and foot movements, with no balance is one I've seen too. At some recent classes, one of the "senior students" moved along a tight rope, with no balance, no empty/full. the class was taught by the instructor moving through the form, and the class mimicking & following. Little or no time was spent stopping to correct people on their stances or technique.

Anyway, I would agree that the 24 move short form has particular advantage, perhaps the people teaching it take more time to do each section correctly......

thank you,

Bruce E
Boise Idaho

My research indicates that the 24 posture Peoples republic of china form was composed by 4 men- Fu Zhongwen,Cai Longyun, Zhang Yu , and Chu Gui Ting in 1956. Fu Zhongwen studied with Yang Chen Fu and wrote an excellent book on the Yang style of Chen Fu (translated by Louis Swain -1999).. The 24 posture form is obviously a Yang style form which mysteriously contains mirror image posture or pairs of them- very interesting as Yang Chen Fu was opposed to doing the mirror image of the empty hands form.
The 24 form allows those without the tenacity , patience, ability, or commitment to the larger art, to reap some of the potential benefits of tai chi . To stop at that form is to admit to yourself that you are only doing it for calesthetics and do not see tai chi as an art--(in other words , something which takes 3 lifetimes to master!)

According to professor Li Deyin his uncle Li Tianji created the first standardized simplified 24-form taijiquan.

And to be honest Li Tianji was a highly skilled Xingyiquan guy but I am not so sure about his taijiquan

http://ezine.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/a ... rticle=374