Yang Family Tai Chi Discussion Board

Something interesting I recently noticed...I was getting acupuncture and I asked the doctor if certain ailments require longer or shorter acupuncture times. His response was that there was an ancient text that describes the qi circulates to all the points in the body in one cycle anywhere from 50-60 times a day which is anywhere between 24-28 minutes depending on the person. So he says 30 minutes is enough for the "qi" to reach all the needles.

In Taiji Long form, i was first taught to do in 20 minutes.... having been studying and timing the Yang form from Yang Zhen Dou's/Yang Jun's video they do the form in about 27 minutes. I am wondering if this is based on the TCM qi circulation theory.

I mentioned it to my doctor and he said (he teaches long form) that Taiji practice speed really is based on how the individual breathes, some people can do long breathing where they can do 2 cycles of inhale and exhale in one minute. Also he said enough practice is done when you reach the point you are just about to sweat.

What i got out of it.... is to do no less than 30 minutes of training to get a nice healthy cycle of Qi flow to all the meridians through Taijiquan training.

is there an official time the Long form should take?

Hi Matt,

I generally do the form in 25 to 30 minutes, according to the speed I have internalized from seminars. I go by feeling rather than the clock. I do not recall what speed is actually recommended, but I think it was between 20-30 minutes, but that other speeds are possible depending upon your purpose and level of training. Since we are supposed to keep our breathing even and long, I think that is one way to judge speed.

Take care,
Audi

I don't know if this would constitute an official time for the form, but this video of Yang Zhen Duo doing the Traditional 103 Hand Form runs for 23:48.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDgG4zze8wU
I tend to shoot for 20 minute hand forms myself when "going for record" though I can, and sometimes do, play a fast form in about seven minutes or so but that's for a different benefit than doing the slow ones.
I usually land somewhere in between 17 and 22 minutes when I move at my "normal" pace.
I know, that means my "normal pace" varies quite a bit.
There are many factors at work; my mood when I start, my mood as I continue, the time of day, the amount of light, the freshness of the air, the company I'm in, if I'm alone, if I've drank coffee and if so how much coffee I drank, is it Tuesday?
Etc.
As a human being I am not going to move at exactly the same pace every single time I play a form.
If I could play the form at exactly the same speed and intensity every time I did it I think I'd be known as "Robot Bob" instead of Bob Bu Hao!

Bob

Bob Ashmore wrote:I don't know if this would constitute an official time for the form, but this video of Yang Zhen Duo doing the Traditional 103 Hand Form runs for 23:48.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDgG4zze8wU
I tend to shoot for 20 minute hand forms myself when "going for record" though I can, and sometimes do, play a fast form in about seven minutes or so but that's for a different benefit than doing the slow ones.
I usually land somewhere in between 17 and 22 minutes when I move at my "normal" pace.
I know, that means my "normal pace" varies quite a bit.
There are many factors at work; my mood when I start, my mood as I continue, the time of day, the amount of light, the freshness of the air, the company I'm in, if I'm alone, if I've drank coffee and if so how much coffee I drank, is it Tuesday?
Etc.
As a human being I am not going to move at exactly the same pace every single time I play a form.
If I could play the form at exactly the same speed and intensity every time I did it I think I'd be known as "Robot Bob" instead of Bob Bu Hao!

Bob

Hi Bob,

From the way it sounded that your mind was too busy and/or you have a "monkey-mind" moment,Ha ha. Sorry Bob I just couldn't help it because IT makes me do it.

I always thought it is a good rule that one should empty ones mind and listen to the silent with no timing in mind before the starting of Taijiquan. Even after one reaches the end of the "closing posture" one should have forgotten about the time by then. At that "moment of here and now" it was feeling so good I want to feel it forever more.....Time? what time.

Just to share my Taiji doing stuff..Try it and you might like it. It could calm your mind.

Ciao, and have a good Taiji day.
yslim

I don't know if that's how I'd have described it, but I certainly can't blame you for not passing on the dig.
I've had more than my fair share of monkey mind, that's for sure.
And I would be lying if I said that outside factors don't influence my form work.
I know they do, so instead of attempting to overcome them I take them into consideration and actually have learned to embrace them.
State of mind is obviously critical to the practice of T'ai Chi Ch'uan. Keeping that in mind, I find that in order to "be in the moment" it's very important to know what moment I'm in.
How can anyone "be in the moment" if they're not in tune with their mood and their surroundings?
Your mood and surroundings...
Those ARE the moment.
Sometimes monkey mind is the moment, sometimes complete calm, other times it's somewhere in between.
Mood happens, you can't stop it no matter how hard you try, so I feel it's better to embrace your mood, even own it, than it is to deny it or try to "work past" it.
It's never been possible, not for me anyway, to completely disregard my mood and slip "into the moment". I find that my mood is the moment.
So I work with that.

Bob

My class did a bit of an experiment this week - we've been doing a few lately, but this one was worth sharing here.

In short, we sped the pace up about double-tempo, just to see what it felt like.

One of the things I noticed - and others did as well - was that you can't simply speed up the form without changing the nature of the movements somewhat.

It's hard for me to describe, but in order to keep the pace, apply the fundamentals and be relaxed throughout - as opposed to just rushing through, which we weren't trying to do - I had to put more vigor (for lack of a better word) into arriving in each posture. It made me realize how important the movement TO the posture was - in some cases, more important than the finishing posture itself.

It's not something we'll likely do all the time but it was informative.

gvi

mls_72 wrote: I mentioned it to my doctor and he said (he teaches long form) that Taiji practice speed really is based on how the individual breathes, some people can do long breathing where they can do 2 cycles of inhale and exhale in one minute. Also he said enough practice is done when you reach the point you are just about to sweat.

is there an official time the Long form should take?

These words are from the mouths of the experts. The hidden message is to have the breathing coordinates with the movement and vice versa. That was done by the famous phrase, again, "氣沈丹田(sink chi to the tantian)."

A little sweat on the forehead after the form was done which indicates it was performed properly. The part on the timing is only apply to the level of practice of each individual. All beginners should start as slow as possible until the breathing habit was formed, then the speed maybe increased with a good coordination of the movements. I have heard that the long form was done by some individuals from 20 to 45 minutes. Hence, there was no time set limit for any forms, really! The goal of Taiji Quan is to reach the realm as highlighted in blue.

Greetings,
When I was first taught, we did 5 repetitions of cloud hands, repulse monkey, etc. However, these days 3 repetitions are the norm. Time to do the current norm? I advise folks to aim for 25 mins plus/minus 4. For myself, I typically do my form in just under 30 mins. Obviously the 10 essentials have to be engaged, but what primarily affects the speed of the form, is I believe, "Stillness in motion". This requires your mind to be quiet, your breathing deep and slow, etc.
As an aside, as some have mentioned about speeding the form. Try the form with 'fajin'. However, vary it fast and slow, so that you express the form more martially (?). I don't, for myself, do this often as I practice other forms that I can express fajin in.
Take care,
Frank

fchai wrote:...Try the form with 'fajin'. However, vary it fast and slow, so that you express the form more martially (?)...
Take care,
Frank

I wonder if that's what I was doing when I talked about us speeding up the pace of the form. I used the term "vigor" but I suppose I could have said "fajin" instead, though I suspect there's a subtle difference in expression.

Now you mention it, there was a bit of variance in pace, one posture to the next. It seemed as if there were a few postures where the group naturally slowed down. Then again, it could have been a not-quite-conscious effort for the group to re-orient itself after one or more of us had sped ahead, fallen behind or just plain lost focus.

Cheers!
gvi

Please don't get confuse with the practices of the basic form and Fajin. They are two different levels of practice. For the sake of the discussion, I think we are talking about the basic form only. Especially, we are talking about time involvement. It seems someone has a little misunderstanding or was misinformed about Fajin.

Frank,
There are more "forms" than there are stars in the sky, or so it seems at times.
Why so many "forms" have been invented is a bit of a mystery to me since one "form" done with differing intent should be sufficient for just about anyone but...
To each their own and all that kind of thing.
I've learned so many different "forms" from so many different "styles" that it kind of boggles my mind (five named styles, two Symposiums, a different short form from each style was taught each time, just for starters). However over time almost all of them have dropped out of my memory. That's just too much information for me to ever try to retain over time.
And for me it has proven unnecessary to do so.
What I've found is that I really only need a couple of "forms" for practice in each named style I try to emulate (barring weapons forms, I have one for each of those per style as well, but I digress).
One long form and one short form from each. That's it, that's all I seem to need.
I use the long form for practice most of the time. I try to do three Traditional Yang Family long forms every other day, then three Wu Chien Chuan long forms on the next day. I usually average two forms a day, I strive for three but don't get there anywhere near as often as I'd like.
I use the short forms I know from each of those when I simply don't have the time to do a long form, which is usually when I'm on a break at work or I'm waiting for students to arrive for a class and only have a few minutes.
What I do is I change my intent for each form according to what I am trying to practice today. By using the same "form" and simply changing the intent that I am focusing on each time I find that I can easily focus on what it is I am trying to figure out, or keep my ability up on, for that run through. Since I'm not trying to remember where my hands and feet are supposed to be at the moment, because I already know, I can pay attention to what I'm shooting for on this particular run through.

Not any particularly earth shattering information here, I guess. Mostly I just had a thought and followed it hoping that others might get something from my type of practice.
It would be nice, I guess, to learn a dozen forms and practice them all regularly...
But who has that kind of time?
Or memory?
Not this guy, that's for sure.
I have a hard enough time keeping the two styles I practice from bleeding over into one another when I do the few forms that I use already.
Adding more to that mix...
Nah, not this guy!

Which brings up another ramble for me...
"Blending" the two styles I practice.
It happens more than I'd like to admit but I'm going for honesty here so...
Yeah, it happens.
When I find myself going off form and combining the two styles I used to worry about it and would immediately stop what I was doing and start over on the style I originally started in.
I would "punish" myself for it by making myself start over right from Preparation Form even if I was nearly at the end when I went off style.
Not anymore.
Now, I follow that energy and let it lead me where it obviously wants me to go.
By doing that I have found SO many more similarities than differences in between my two favored styles that I no longer actually consider them two different styles.
They are clearly the same thing.
Frame size, no matter.
Circle size, no matter.
Name of style, no matter.
And I'm no longer "punishing" myself, not even in my own mind, so I enjoy doing my practice more now knowing that I'm going to have fun doing it no matter which "style" or what "form", or none at all (total freestyle), I actually end up doing.

Did I actually have a point here...?
Guess not.
Just rambling.
Anyone else have any experiences like this?
Or do you have to be a "double styler" for this to happen?

Bob Bu Hao

Bob Ashmore wrote:Did I actually have a point here...?

Yes, Bob, you do have a point here.

Greetings.

The board has been rather silent of late. Perhaps we are all a little worn out and jaded from COVID lockdowns and restrictions.

Just going back to how long it takes to do the Long Form? There is generally going to be some variation in timing based on the person's interpretation and hence execution of the form. However, I have found that what makes the greatest difference to the pace I execute the form is my "stillness" or "quiescence", in mind and body. The typical average pace at which I take to complete the Long Form is about 26 minutes. However, as my stillness deepens, as does my breathing, this can extend to 28 minutes or even to 30 minutes. It is like being a river and flowing at different depths. On the surface the current flow faster, but as you go deeper the current moves slower but more profoundly. So, the slowness of your execution of the form is not the objective, but the result of your greater understanding and proficiency. Quiescence in motion is a core principle of Taiji. However, this probably only applies to the Yang Family Taiji as some the other Taiji styles have more variations in pace and execution, and stillness is not necessarily as important to them.

Take care and stay safe.
Frank