morning dew

No need to apologise I'm here to learn and I'm not locked into any one particular system or school. Right now, what I'm doing is helping me healthwise on a physical level, but I may well move onto something else later on when I'm not getting anything more out of it. It's interesting to read what you're saying, but it would be helpful if you could post a video of something you think is more 'authentic' tai chi. I think it would be helpful for all of us (well, it would be for me anyway ) so we could have a compare and contrast, and be able to have a bit more of a discussion about it.

Thanks for sharing this. I shall look forward to watching it during the week at some point.

This is a nice video. It's very interesting to watch it now that I've got the basic shape of our form. I can see it's a couple of minutes longer than my one, and the order is a bit different here and there. Also, some moves seem to get repeated more as well, I think. I'll have to go over this again during the week. Also, there seems to be more 'deepness'/sinking/pronouncement in some of the movements, I think. I especially like the 'flying diagonals' we talked about before. Is there a technical term for these and do they serve some kind of purpose? We don't have any of those in our short form.

I'm reaching the end of my Wu short form and was curious as to what the differences are between the long and short forms in any style of Tai Chi. What's the difference between doing the long form a couple of times in the morning or the short form five or six times, for example. What extra do you gain from the long form? Extra health benefits? More martial arts techniques/applications? Better unblocking of channels? Better development of internal alchemy? Something else I can't think of?

Thanks, some interesting thoughts here. Firstly, my main priority is health with tai chi. I'm not sure if I'll ever get to the point physically where I'll be able to think about fighting again; however, it's nice to build that up slowly and have that in reserve in case I do. Secondly, yes, my teacher actually suggested in the mornings that you can run through the form fairly quickly a couple of times as a kind of warm up if you are having difficulties getting started and then slowing it down. Also, we've done it once in class really slowly as well. There probably is merit in playing around with it a bit. It's still too early for me, really, to be messing around like that, though. I've only been doing it this year and only just got to the end of the short form.

Short form (Wu) takes me around 3 to 4 min, but I've been recommended to slow it down to around 5, which seems to be the length most people on yt do it in. I've no idea what the long form takes, although the first part (of three) is basically the short form. Also, when I used to do Yang short form for a little while, I have a feeling it would have taken 15 min and the longer form 40 to 50 min (as it was taught in that class)? I can't remember, to be honest.

Thanks, that was an outstanding post. It was really interesting to read

This sounds fascinating. Would you like to share a bit more about what exactly you feel you gained from longer forms?

Yeah, that's cool. Share whatever you like on this thread. I shall look forward to reading over the curriculum when I get a chance.

Thanks for the advice from both of you. I did actually order the full Classics book the other day, so it should be making an appearance sometime this week.

This is absolutely fascinating. I had to look up daogong and shengong. It's interesting to see these come into play as well in Tai Chi even with simple forms.

Aha! That explains my observation. That's quite fascinating. I think I'm slowly starting to grasp things from all the conversations I'm having with everyone. I have a much better sense of where you're coming from now, for example.

Thanks, very interesting. I am a beginner but I agree with what I could understand. I didn't like moving energy with my mind when I did qigong. It was too strong for me. It made me dizzy and spaced out and not grounded. (Baduanjin is okay, though, for me.) The only thing I like to do with energy is just to sit and meditate on lower dan tien. Then, the energy moves by itself, sometimes down all the way down my legs in lines, sometimes up to the top of my head. This feels good and natural to me. You mention middle dan tien and "垂簾觀照心之下腎之上彷彿有個虛無窟子(watch in an empty hole between heart and kidney)". Do you begin meditating on middle dan tien with your system or have I misunderstood what you are saying?

Thanks for putting this together. It's absolutely fascinating to watch. It's interesting how you can have a very basic principle of getting out of the way and the palm guiding the punching arm out of the way, and yet you can build on it with quite a few different responses from there. I'm not sure why, but in some ways this is reminding me of when I used to do Wing Chun a little – especially, points where you stick to or hook his arm with your hand.

Fascinating. It's very interesting to read your approach. Yeah, I have to say, I'm not really a big fan of just knocking people to the ground in the middle of a fight – unless we happen to be standing on the edge of a cliff, I suppose.

Thanks, that's very clear. And yes, I didn't even realise there were martial drills until I started talking to people on here about tai chi.

Thanks Steve, this is a great response. I think I'm starting to grasp what people are talking about now. With the last bit and the mirror image (see my last comment to Starjumper). I wonder if Wu and Chen are slightly different in design with respect to doing both sides? Or are you getting at something else other than physically stretching/opening up the body by doing the mirror image?

LOL! Yeah, interesting on the lopsidedness. I do remember my teacher mentioning that the Wu form was deliberately designed to stretch both sides physically, even though it isn't a double style. I can't remember if he was referring specifically to Bruce Frantzis's take on it (my teacher is an energy arts teacher) or whether he was referring to Wu Tai Chi in general. Would you like to expand on the last bit? Which particular moves and why? I did a few years of external martial arts when I was a lot younger, but I seem to remember doing all sorts of moves.

Thanks, very interesting I was just going over my notes trying to remember which of the moves was 'grasp the bird's tail'. It seems to be between 'single peng right' and 'single whip', and it involves the clockwise and anticlockwise arm/hand rotations and the spinning right palm strike, etc. Did your teacher expand on exactly which bits of this sequence made it so important and how?

Thanks, very interesting. Can you expand on this a little bit please? I've heard my teacher mention this as well. What exactly does that mean? I'm assuming you're not talking about the martial arts side. You're talking about posture/relaxation/(energetic) flow?

Thanks, fascinating as always. Double sided helps in terms of martial arts applications, and opening the body physically and energetically? As for Gandhi video: LOL! Yeah, that's good advice. My teacher does know the long form and also martial arts applications. He's been doing around nine years on Wu style (I think); he's in the BKF system. That's plenty for me as a newbie.

Thanks. Can I get away with this version or should I aim for the full one? https://www.amazon.co.uk/Essence-Tai-Chi-Selections-Classics/dp/1590305094/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1499175927&sr=8-2&keywords=Waysun+Liao's+Tai+Chi+Classics

Thanks, very interesting. So with this paragraph here we could say a couple of things, perhaps? Beginning with the second factor, martial applications, we could say the long form prepares you for more situations? With the short form you may be missing out on how to deal with attacks from a particular direction or type (grapple, kick, punch, grab), or how to attack from a certain direction or side (you may only know how to strike with the right hand, or may have no kicks at all)? With the first factor, practising correct stance and posture and re-educating the body as regards correct movement, this would be more related to health, both physically and energetically (chi flow)? If you only do the short form, you would not be opening your body physically (muscles) or certain channels energetically?

Okay, I'll get the ball rolling. Also, I think it might be handy to have something such as this somewhere or other – I'm not quite sure where it should go, though: http://www.iep.utm.edu/zhuangzi/#H2 --------- So the gloves are off against the Confucians! I think here is the most explicit criticism of Confucianism I've seen so far (I could easily have missed something in the inner chapters, though): From the little I know of Confucianism, it all revolves around power structures and respect that are mirrored throughout society: people respect emperor > family members respect father/husband > younger children respect older children? The problem with all of this, IMO, is that respect should be earned, not given freely. It's not much use blindly following an emperor if he's completely incompetent and a tyrant, etc. I guess this criticism isn't that surprising given chapter 8 was supposedly written by Anarchist Utopianists (see my link above). I have some sympathy with this argument, but anarchism has its own problems as we discussed earlier with Michael: it's only going to work if everybody is a Daoist (in a benevolent universe); otherwise, you're going to end up with a mess.

I'm just an amateur bumbler, so I will just wish you good health and say 'welcome to the group'.