The Basics of Taijiquan
Before we continue on our journey it is useful to be elaborate on our journey to date, to enumerate what we have learnt and to hence discover where we are.
In our modern world most people lack basic physical skills due to the nature of our sedentary lifestyles. Only professional athletes, dancers, gymnasts, sportsmen and highly motivated amateurs have the the necessary fitness, flexibility , stamina and determination to succeed. However the disciplines that they have chosen to excel at have different foci and training methods that are mostly incompatible with Taijquan.
The Hand Form
To ease the transition from traditional strength based exercise to the rather different stamina and flexible power based exercises of Taijiquan. The method for this is to teach the postures and transitions of the Empty Hand Form Sequence which are designed to teach the fundamentals of movement , balance and posture.
To properly learn the form takes constant practise and correction by the teacher , in both posture, coordination and smooth transitions. This stage will vary from months to years dependant upon the level of physical self-knowledge of the learner, their ability to observe and self-correct, their understanding of theory, their experience in other Martial Arts and the amount of time they spend practising every day.
Those who only practise in lessons rarely progress beyond the first section and even then cannot perform by themselves and can only copy what others are doing.
Square Form Section 1 - 2007 | |
The square form was created as a teaching aid to teach the round form. It enables beginners to practise individual postures and teachers to observe and correct their students more easily. |
Short Form Section1 - 2003 | |
Short Form
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Form Section 1 - 2004 | |
Round Form
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Round Form Section 1 - 2007 | |
Practise over many years changes the way the form is performed as the form becomes owned by the practitioner and greater understanding of the connection between form and function manifests after years of application practise . |
Form practise teaches the necessary smooth balanced postural changes and the transitions between the postures that contain the essence of the martial applications.
Without mastering the Empty Hand Form the correct movement for the applications cannot be understood and students only copy the external visual component of the application without understanding how the application should be correctly performed. Thus the applications are performed in the same way as a hard stylist would perform them.
