Hello! How are you doing with your tai chi?

 

Are you doing the long or traditional yang form with 108 movements, or the short form (24, 37, 40, etc.)? Most likely, it's the short form. I observe that either in Luneta or UP, the short form is the one practiced. You may wish to consider learning and practicing the long form, too. Here are two arguments from the masters in favor of this:

 

 

"Lots of people changed the form. I am the only one that did not change the form. I still haven´t studied everything. How can I change it? The ancients were so good, how can you change something that they developed with their high skills..." (A last interview with Fu Zhongwen, Tai Chi Magazine, Vol 18 No. 6)

 

NOTE: It is said that the Yang Cheng Fu long form is the culmination and arguably, the perfection, of 1000 years of Tai Chi.

 

Master Yang Zhenduo says:

 

The traditional [long] form... proceeds gradually from gentle moves toward a climax. The traditional form is particularly clever in that it gently sets up the basis in the first section, and then intersperses the relatively difficult moves throughout the second and third sections, where the repetition of earlier moves has a very good regulating function. This way the person practicing is free and easy, relaxed and natural, and though he may finish an entire round of the form or even multiple rounds, he can accomplish it without the least strain.."

 

Good day!

 

-- roh mih