Tai Chi Blog 5 - Practical Applications

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Well the form is finished. In all of the previous classes we worked on different parts of the Yang Style 28 form and then after that we put them together. So the form is finished. What we’re doing now is working on the form to improve it. This is particularly important since the form was taught pretty fast. This is a pretty stark contrast to wing chun class where the form is taught quite slow and we spend a lot of time learning new moves before moving on.

One of the arm breaks in the form

We don’t do many practical applications for moves in class but occasionally the instructor will show me some. Personally I find it often helps me visualize how the move is supposed to look so I enjoy being shown. In this class I was shown some possible applications for a move that could be an arm break of a push. And then we spend a bunch of time practicing the next part of the form.

I wasn’t quite sure how the arms were supposed to move after the arm break so this was a good thing to practice. In addition to where the arms are supposed to go we also worked on the step and weight change that accompanies them. It’s definitely not perfect but I feel like I understand it better now than before class.

The next part I hope we work on is the part with the high blocks that comes near the middle of the form. I was watching myself do it in class and it just looks bad. I have a little trouble with the step between the blocks and I can’t seem to make the blocks themselves right either, so hopefully we do some work on that move in a future class.

Then we got a surprise at the end of the class when we started a Chen style form. Everything we had done in all the classes up to this point were Yang style so I was excited to see something from a different lineage. It’s a super cool looking form but seems to be maybe a little more technically challenging than the Yang style form, which isn’t good since I have so much trouble with the Yang style form already. But maybe I’ll start to pick it up as we do it more. Only time will tell.

I like where the classes are going right now. We’ve wrapped up one form and we’re focusing on small parts of it to improve and at the same time working on a new form. Hopefully it doesn’t end up being overwhelming.

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