Chen Zijiang is performing a 5 star routine here; a perfect, seamless flow of Fundamentals, Form, and Function!
Watch the hands. As a great teacher imparted a way long time ago, when I was too young and dense to understand, “watch the hands, they come from below, they tell the whole story, between the visable and invisable opponent.”
Over the course of a long empty hand form, there are a few groupings of postures that are repeated. These postures combine together to make up a significant part of our form. Given the repetition of these postures, one might infer that they are particularly important to the practice of taijiquan and special attention should be paid to them.
Over the last few months, classes have expanded on this theme and begun to include short forms that are comprised of only repeated postures. For example, one form may include all of the Hug Knee postures in sequential order but no other postures from the form. Or perhaps, all of the Grasp Sparrow's Tails/Single Whip sequences can be strung together to provide a complete picture of all of the occurrences of this sequence, providing a short form and a way to compare variations through the form.
Working with the form in this way can give a practitioner a clearer picture of the structure of the form. Think of the form as a building. Perhaps the most often repeated sequence can be seen as the support posts for the entire structure - something the artist returns to over and over as the base of their form - Grasp Sparrow's Tail/Single whip for example.. From there, the form contains other frequently repeated postures like Deflect, Parry and Punch or Hug Knee. These can be seen as the joists or beams that tie the substantial posts together, helping to create a cohesive structure. As other postures are added in, the structure of form begins to take full form, a structure complete with all the trimmings (think complicated postures that appear once in the form).
As our classes have worked with this concept, one of our students has created a helpful guide to the Deflect, Parry and Punch posture, which is repeated a total of six times. It's important to know how the repetitions are similar and in what ways they differ.
Here you can see Gary Forbach's personal chart to track these differences. While it's helpful for every student to figure out their own way to track differences in the form, this is a helpful guide to all and can provide a good starting point for anyone wishing to do their own analysis of the form.
The second document here is another take on how documentation used to explore the form. This is a study guide to the form compiled by another student, Bob Ingram. This guide breaks the form into groupings using colors and other notations. It's a one stop shop!
Do you have a way you explore the form on paper? Have you created cheat sheets of your own? What other types of things may be helpful in deepening your understanding of form? Leave your thoughts and comments below.
While working with some senior students in class, LaoMa frequently encourages students to analyze the form. This includes picking it apart so that they know the number of postures, number of techniques within a posture, how many times postures are repeated, explore variations of repeated postures and what the reasoning might be for each of these differences. Below is a short blurb that resulted from a Monday night class discussion ending in an early morning epiphany.
I woke up this morning at 5:00 thinking about why there are only 3 ward-off lefts compared to 8 ward-off rights. I came up with an answer (disclaimer: this is “an” answer, not “the” answer, because a) I’m not even sure I’ve got this right b) I’m not sure it’s actually an answer and c) also I imagine there is more than one answer anyway). In my head I was thinking that what you are doing with the right hand in ward-off left is like what you do in diagonal flying (I think). So there are 2 diagonal flyings (Section 2; Section 5). Then, I think you’re also doing the same thing with part the wild-horse’s mane, and there are 3 of those in Section 4. So you have 3 ward-off lefts, 2 diagonal flyings, and 3 parting the wild horse’s manes (3+2+3=8). So, 8 ward-off right things, and 8 ward-off left like things.
However, like Jason and I sometimes used to say to each other after pontification about something or other: “Or, I could just be full of @#$4”
-Micah Sam
We’re putting this out there to help prompt thought and discussion. Feel free to leave comments and questions!
Black Bamboo Pavilion Taijiquan gives classes in tai chi, tai chi weapons, push hands and shufa (chinese caligraphy) in Durham, Pittsboro, Raleigh and the surrounding area.
