One of the main things to work on in taiji IMO is mastering the individual postures. This forms the bulk of my practice with form work coming in second. I take each one of the moves from my Chen Pan-ling form and do them individually as straight line drills. This is perhaps a unique feature of CPL taiji called shuangbian (double sided) taiji. You do the moves repeatedly on the right and left sides.
The start of this practice is isolating the individual moves that make up your style. How you do this is simple: find a form list for your style and then cut and paste each individual movement into a list (obviously leaving out the repeats). This now gives you a list of moves that you MUST have mastered in order to fully know the style. For Yang style, you have 37 or so postures. ZMQ guys will have around 23. Goodness only knows how many Chen stylists will have with yilu and paochui combined. Good luck to you guys because you’ll need it. 
Once this list is compiled, you know what you have to work with in making up drills and partner work. IMO you should ideally know multiple applications for each move on the list. Yes, it’s tough for me too. Hard to remember all that. But this is the goal — mastering the postures. You should also IMO be able to do every one of these moves in PH. Isolating them into a list helps you see which ones you may have left out of training or can’t apply in PH.
For those of you in the CPL system, I have made it easy for you. Here’s your homework:
play the pipa
grasp the bird’s tail
single whip
deflect, parry and punch
raise hands
white crane spreads it wings
brush knee twist step
seal and close
cross hands
turn and carry tiger back to mountain
turn body fist under elbow
twist step repulse (drive out ) monkey
diagonal flying
needle to the bottom of the sea
fan through the back
turn body over and hit with fist
cloud hands
high pat on horse
separate foot (kick)
turn body heel kick
raise leg plant fist (punch down)
turn body and (diagonal?) punch
step back right hit the tiger
right penetrating punch
two winds penetrate the ears (double punch)
slanted body side kick
turn body and stomp
part the wild horse’s mane
jade lady works at shuttle
golden rooster stands on one leg
splitting palm
turn body, sweep kick
step forward hit to groin
slide down (xia shi)
step up seven stars
sweep kick
draw the bow and shoot the tiger
If this seems like a lot, remember that you could be doing Chen style.
11 responses so far ↓
1 Frank Bellemare // Apr 25, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Going back to the 37 postures is a great idea, it makes things so much simpler. Actually, when looking at Yang tai chi movements this way, I find that a few of the 37 postures are pretty much the same thing.
For instance, brush knee twist step is basically the same move as the “downward punch” (with a slightly different path of power) and “turn and carry tiger back to mountain” (with a different stepping pattern). There are only a few basic patterns and that’s a good thing IMHO.
And you’re right Dave, Chen style is hell, albeit a fun and intriguing kind of hell.
2 Cyril // Apr 25, 2008 at 11:33 pm
IMO the toughest part of learning taiji (whatever the form) is not in the postures but in the transitions between the postures. Understanding the transitions is key. Only the form with all the transitions will allow you to make circulate the qi.
That’s why learning the posture should only be one part of your training.
3 Brennan Cleveland // Apr 26, 2008 at 12:02 am
Dave,
That’s exactly how I practice my Yang style Tai Chi… single postures up and down the room. I rarely do the form.
In response to Cyril: The transitions ARE the techniques of Tai Chi. The postures are the end points… where your body ends up AFTER you’ve issued your power. I’ve been thinking about this alot lately. I’ve realize that even the bow stance is how your leg/weight distribution ends up after shifting foward… it serves to arrest your forward momentum by rooting in the front foot. Interestingly, the power is issued while still back weighted. I have recently been practicing the postures without ever going into a bow stance, by shifting from 100/0 to 60/40 on issue. Another interesting point about the bow stance… as I said before, it’s how you arrest your forward momentum in Tai Chi (and Hung Gar and most other martial arts, I would imagine). Hsing-I does not use a bow stance, but instead uses a “follow step” to suck your rear leg back under your center immediately after you issue power, so as to maintain a back weighted stance.
One final thing: I have also been practicing my Tai Chi using Hsing-I “counting”. What I mean by that is, Hsing-I techinques are started and ended in the “ready” position (generally a cat stance), whereas in Tai Chi are started and ended in the “end” position (the “posture”). I have started doing Tai Chi in this way, starting and ending in the “ready” position (which is also usually a cat stance). For Brush Knee, we normally count it as (starting from the Brush Knee posture left foot forward):
1. Shift back
2. Shift forward to cat (100 % on left foot)
3. Step forward to seven stars
4. brush right knee
with the other counting method it would be (starting from right cat stance):
1. Step forward to seven stars
2. brush left knee
3. Shift back
4. Step to left cat
4 Brennan Cleveland // Apr 26, 2008 at 12:11 am
Dave,
My other method, besides straight line, is to do the postures using all the basic footwork:
1. forward step
2. backward step
3. 90 degree step
4. 180 degree step
5. switch step
6. that step behind step (used in diagonal flying fore example) that I don’t have a good name for.
So, I will pick a posture like brush knee, and do it over and over varying my stepping pattern among those I listed above. I find this drill very helpful.
5 Dave Chesser // Apr 26, 2008 at 1:49 am
As for transitions, the way I do them straight line has transitions built in, although they may be different transitions than what is found in the form. I also do form, so I have that covered.
I don’t have a problem with qi flow in single posture practice. In fact, single posture practice might be a better (and simpler) way to find it.
But I do admit that doing the whole form with qi flow is a unique challenge due to the linking of many various moves. Single movement practice can’t approach that. But having many tools in the tool box helps.
6 meow // Apr 26, 2008 at 4:15 pm
too many moves etc, my views are on other pages but..
for my taiji training, i do the form, i do push hands, and i drill individual moves which represent the majority e.g. this move where i sit back my weight on one leg, the other straight, then i basically transfer the weight and push (reason? almost all the other moves are the same (2 handed pushes, punches etc, all based off the same biomechanics)
(and then i do san shou and weight training :P)
7 Chad // Apr 27, 2008 at 12:07 am
the Yang style I do does this with five of the moves. Brush Birds Tail, Brush Knee, Monkey Stepping Back, Part Horses Mane, and Cloud Hands. All the other moves are considered variations on these. these are done in straight lines backward, forward and in circles. These are taught to people starting out to aid learning the form, but I mainly practice these on my own and pretty much only do the form with students who are at that level.
As far as solo practice goes, we have hundreds of silk reeling exercises which can be mixed and matched with stepping techniques. I do many of these in solo practice for my self and I consider them my “drawing board”. This method has really lent it’s self to being able to take things from the form, dissect them, put them in context and use them. Likewise, if something is not going well in sparring, it can be pretty effectively examined for technical problems wether for power generation, entry techniques, chin na, or foot work.
We also veiw Tuishou as a transition between solo and partner work with the ultimate goal of progressing to free sparring. So, like the form, I only do tuishou with people who are learning it and for demos and such.
8 Dave Chesser // Apr 27, 2008 at 9:04 am
Daniel Mroz made the following comment but my spam software ate it for some reason. Here it is:
Dave,
Great post. If you’d like to see the list of moves for Chen style, head over to Chenzhonghua.org. Joseph Chen has posted Hong Junsheng’s classification of all Chen style movements into 20 fundamental categories.
Best,
Daniel
(Sorry about that Daniel)
9 B_Wutang // Apr 27, 2008 at 11:59 am
We practice 3 major transitions between postures (exercises) for Chen old form (the Du Yu Ze line). IMHO - It’s amazing how doing that alters your reflexes. For Yang old/traditional (Cheng Fu), we also do 3 major transitions as exercises. I have not yet learned Chinese but I recognize the names of the postures for each transition aurally/musically only or I would list them here. I’m looking forward to push hands training.
10 wayne hansen // Apr 27, 2008 at 12:11 pm
i learnt the 5 chad does as the 5 flows.
for combat training we also break down the 8 hand movements repeating each l/r with fa jing and follow steps.
11 YMAA.com // May 2, 2008 at 8:20 pm
True several patterns in the sequence APPEAR to be nearly identical, but they are not. Play the Guitar and Lift Hands to the Up Posture are different movements with different names BECAUSE they have different applications. Similar, but different; each with its own unique applications for certain situations/body positions that you may encounter.
At this point, Im obligated to mention this recent Taiji Martial Applications video from Dr. Yang regarding this topic, from the perspective of the Yang 37-Postures, with Yang, Ban-Hou flavor. (Thanks Dave)
http://ymaa.com/publishing/internal/taijiquan/taiji_martial_applications_DVD
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