Yang Family Tai Chi Discussion Board

Strait or leaning postures...

I watched Yang Zhenduo in a video discussing the long form in fair detail. During this video he says something like lean on postures with both arms in one direction, but stay strait with postures with separated arms. Ex. Single whip has strait while wardoff has leaning. I know there are exceptions, but find this a simple 'usual case' rule to follow. Any thoughts on this? Thanks.

Jaxi wrote:Strait or leaning postures...

I watched Yang Zhenduo in a video discussing the long form in fair detail. During this video he says something like lean on postures with both arms in one direction, but stay strait with postures with separated arms. Ex. Single whip has strait while wardoff has leaning. I know there are exceptions, but find this a simple 'usual case' rule to follow. Any thoughts on this? Thanks.

It seems the exception, in the example, is true when the practice is moving continuously without hesitation.

Thanks, love to get 'principles' like that... Very useful in explaining the where and where-nots to people who seem to have trouble feeling when their structures are sound. Enough time repeating it under direction, and the muscle memory sets in, but good foundation and principles help for everything heaped up on top.