2015 Resolution

This blog will be a year old in another month.  I started it while I was burning up vacation time to nurse mom back to health at the timeshare.  It was great progress at first and it got me back into my tai chi head while my side business slowed down.  Then I had cataract surgery, then another to correct the implant.  And after each eye surgery, there's a period where they tell you don't exercise and don't bend over.  I just never got back to exercising, then business picked up again.  There were other home issues that drained my bank account so the side business is helping my financial recovery. 

In 2015, I resolve to practice tai chi every day.  I WILL make time for it.

Short Forms

This started out as a digression in the "Single Whip" post after my thought that Second Section makes good demonstration.  It's now on it's own, LOL. 

In my opinion, the development of short forms like Cheng Man Ching’s 37-step Short Form and the all-style Beijing Short Form were originally an attempt to standardize tai chi competition and to market this martial art as “exercise.”  Teachers over the years would dumb down the form to increase retention of beginners and/or reduce the need for space.  When competition came about, there were too many different styles, so the head of "family" styles tried to standardize things.  LOL new style by committee!  Um, no. What better way to lose "style," not to mention the original intent and completeness.  Yeah, I'm a traditionalist.

I’ve never been to a Tai Chi forms competition, they didn’t exist until after I’d left the classes.  From what I’ve seen on YouTube, watching Tai Chi forms competition is as exciting as watching grass grow.  But in Open Competition (meaning you compete against all martial arts styles, not just like styles), Second Section makes good demonstration.  Even done fast, it almost never wins because it’s too different from what the hard styles are doing and also because the judges, who are typically Karate black belts, lack knowledge in soft styles/internal martial arts.  There is the additional need to inform the judges you will be going past the boundary of the ring (on purpose) and ask to let you know if/when you’ve reached your max time limit. 

So why do I keep searching "my" short form?  It's nothing but a personal thing about collecting complete sets. While I was learning short form, I wasn't actively trying to learn it.  I just followed along to let this one get absorbed by osmosis  rote.  I'm not kicking myself over it, at the time it was as much as I could absorb while I was actively learning other styles.  It is what it is.  I am hopeful that one day I'll be able to visit Texas & record the form.  At the very least, I have the rest of my life to figure it out.

Single Whip

To help memorize the long form, I was taught to use Single Whip to further divide the form into smaller learning sets.

 

First Section only has one Single Whip posture.  Easy, peasy.  First Section was meant to be easy.  It’s almost like warm up before you get hot and heavy into the form.  If you are short on time or just starting or with other issues (like balance or stamina), you were meant to work on First Section.  You do need “walking space.”  If the stances are done properly, you will end up several steps (maybe four?) to the left, and almost two steps forward, from where you started. 

 

In Second section, Diagonal Single Whip is not directed to 9:00.  Until the 2nd Single Whip posture, it’s almost the same as First Section.  The only new addition is the Repulse the Monkey series.  The Single Whips bookend the Cloud Hands series and continues to High Pat on Horse (aka Pat the Horse’s Head).  From there, start the kicks.  The second part of the Second Section is all about kicks and balance (on one leg.)  I’d say this is the start of “the next level,” and I think the meat of the form.  This is also where beginners tend to drop out. The end of second section is where we were at the end of the beginner class.

 

In my memory, Mr. Ho always said “there are 7 Single Whips.”  That’s the part that sticks with me, but I’m counting lots more in the form and only 6 that face 9:00 in Third Section.  In order to match his statement, that means I must include Diagonal Single Whip and restrict its application to Third Section.  This section is repetitive and just about doubles the length of First & Second Sections together.

·         Between #1 and #2 Single Whip, is Split Horse’s Main four times.

·         Between #2 and #3 Single Whip, is Four Corners (aka Fair Lady Weaves Shuttles)

·         Between #3 and #4 is Cloud Hands.

·         Between #4 and #5 is almost a repeat of Second Section after Repulse the Monkey until you reach the end of the third Cloud Hands set of the form. 

·         That puts you at #6 Single Whip, which is nearly the end of the form.  Until this point, a new movement was introduced, then repeated later.  From #6 to the end, it’s all unique.  This can be further divided into subsets to learn #6 to #7 Single Whips, and #7 to Closing.

Stamina

There are different kinds of stamina. I’ve never had stamina of any kind, so who am I to talk? I have had times in my life when my fitness peaked and stamina was better, but I can’t say I ever had the mental ability to keep going past the physical pain and burning in the muscles. If I was going to continue for any length of time, that was always something I had to work up to. Then diabetes made my body stop automatically regulating energy & fuel, like a control system oscillating out of control. That went to “manual control.” When the blood sugar hits bottom, it’s like hitting “the wall” in marathon running, worse maybe because it’s not as easy as prepping with a carb load (which makes the blood sugar spike and consequent drop that much more steep.) Now the thyroid is losing its ability to regulate--whatever it regulates—it affects energy level, too. Getting old and gaining weight isn’t helping and a recent change in blood pressure meds make my heart race.  Iron deficiency & Yin deficiency on top of that...it’s anything but mental, I tell ya!

The first kind of stamina that comes to mind is like a marathon runner or long distance swimmer. I liken this to Judo stamina. OMG, these guys are like Energizer Bunnies. Even the fat, old experienced judoka keep going strong with all their muscles for the 2 to 6 hours they’re on the mat. Tae Kwon Do & kick boxing is more like sprinter, tennis or basketball stamina. They have bursts of intense exertion over the length of their workout. Whether upper body or lower body, it’s not like judo that works the whole body strength almost evenly at the same time. Oh, but to watch a skilled lightweight against someone tree times his weight & strength—the finesse is beautiful to watch.

Then there’s Tai Chi stamina. I don’t know what sport or style to compare this to, a long hike maybe? Sloth imitation? The tai chi practitioner is always in motion, albeit slow motion, never frozen in one position unless teacher is correcting their posture or they’ve chosen a position for mindful meditation. The stances, the stances, I tell ya! Just like karate or judo, the power is in the stances. The fact that my legs are always sore for two days after I attempt the form is a sign that I’m doing something right at this point in my practice. No pain, no gain.  Don't believe it!  But it was a popular saying in the 70’s from Jane Fonda aerobics videos. I say it depends on the pain. If I had sharp pain in my knee, that is bad pain and means I’m doing something wrong. Oddly my back doesn’t hurt right now, one of the reasons I returned to tai chi practice. It’s just in the leg muscles. That’s good pain.

Even in the 10-12 years I practiced at UTA, I don't think I ever actually finished the whole form with the low stances as Mr. Ho or Mr. Deng shows in video. Even at the peaks of my fitness, I could start out strong but I faded in the Third Section. I’d end with “old man” stances, narrow, almost standing upright, smaller gestures. I also used to have a problem with my arms falling down (strength failure) as I tired in Third Section. That’s not happening any more, so either I’m stronger in upper body or I’m not holding extra tension that I used to. I doubt it’s the former. It doesn’t take long to get benefit from Tai Chi just by being on the path, you don’t even have to “be there” yet.  You do have to practice somewhat regularly.

And again!

I got in another tai chi workout at the gym, that's two for the long weekend!   I wanted to go yesterday but my legs were so sore.  Felt good starting out today but I fatigued before I even got to the long form.  I had Mom do the 18-style with me.  She did as well as expected, I had a chair ready for her to sit but she almost finished. Then I barely got through 1st section, so I took 2nd section in bits.  I'm wondering if the new thyroid med isn't tiring me out quickly.

Finally

Finally got out to the gym and had to floor to myself.  I finally remembered my external speaker.  Egad, I was horrible.  I had mirrors on two sides to check my posture.  My legs were burning so my stance was very shallow.  At this point, I'm just happy to get through 18-style and the long form.  If I could just burn more of the form into my memory, I can work on posture later.

My attempts to the gym earlier this week, I learned I need to get started by 4:30p or it's too late.  The floor gets crowded and a class comes in before 5:30.  I worked legs earlier this week and I was surprisingly strong, this means I have strength but no stamina.

Ganked

Mom got sick and recovered. And now she's sick again but requiring less of my time now that she's on a slow mend.

I'd gotten frustrated trying to do tai chi in my bedroom. Chi Kung was okay, it's almost stationary and I have enough room to swing my arms and legs if I find just the right spot to stand. But I wasn't making progress with the long form by having to constantly stop and readjust. Haha, how will I swing my swords when I'm ready to do those forms? I was tied to my home Wi-Fi to access the videos.

As they say, there's an app for that. It took surprisingly little effort to figure out how to get past my latest excuse. I'm quite sure these videos are on a DVD somewhere (probably in Taiwan) and I’d love to own an original copy if I ever get the opportunity.

Now to find a time and place to practice daily...

Back at it

Life got busy again.  Then arthritis in my hand has been flaring for 2 weeks, which coincides with the 2 weeks I've not practiced.  I had been doing so well, I was at 2 weeks working out every day except for missing one day each week.  From my physical conditioning, even just the chi kung was tiring the legs. Lately #problemchild is more and more negative every day.  It affects me, I disagree with what she's doing and she won't leave me out of it because she's technology deficient.  So she was very loud today, spreading negativity via phone.  That's it, I had to get through the long form.  I don't have enough room in my bedroom so I make step adjustments and try to make each posture.  Damn if her phone call didn't last as long as the form.  I had to finish it.  I didn't do chi kung or warmups and my legs were already burning before 3rd section.  My knee popped out at the end (ouch.)  But I really needed this tonight, as both a mental distraction and as a physical release.

The short term goal is to have enough energy to do the chi kung, long form, then both sword forms.   The long term goal is to actually memorize the sequence so I'm not tethered to wifi to follow the videos and do the forms back-to-back.  Maybe one day I can figure out the short form, with or without a trip back to Texas.

Chi Kung routines

This is really good, but it takes over 45 minutes.  I would do this daily if I had that kind of time. But like in class, I think it really needs to be broken up. I actually have been through all these exercises before but never all at once.  I am now pleasantly surprised how much qigong we actually did in tai chi class.

 

 

I'd forgotten about tapping exercise.  I have selectively practiced this in the past 15 years, I even got a springy jade hammer in China for this purpose.  Our routine was a little different but the major points are here and this guy actually describes the points he's working on.

 

There was another set having to do with sounds.  The monk has much of it in his routine, though.

Are you serious?

After I just learned the long form, I got transferred to second shift at work. I could not continue the evening tai chi classes. I met Greg in the Sunday taiji meetup at UTA. He had studied with Deng Shihe when he worked in Taiwan for a year or two and would drop into these Sunday meetups. During the week, he lead morning classes in the same studio where several other martial arts were taught (not at the same time.) A bit early for my schedule, but I liked it. Typically just a handful of students, it was easy to ask questions and really work on my forms. Sometimes it was even a private lesson.

Whilst I can appreciate that businesses are in business to stay in business, tai chi seems to attract airheads like bugs to light. I tried to bring up this topic once. Greg was nice about it, I get the little chuckle he had at my snobbery. He was a dreamer. I think his dream was to be a full time martial artist, but at the time, his then-wife's businesses paid their bills while the multi-style school subsisted.

Other than that, I kept to myself about my issue with airheads in tai chi. They've got a flakey personality, seemingly unreliable or fickle. They're a bit spacey to me, kind of floating around in thought and in body. When it extends to their voice, I lose it. I cannot take them seriously. It's a waste of time. I mean, it's one thing to practice tai chi for the exercise versus practice for the martial aspect. I get that. I'm sure they don't know what they're getting into when they decide to take up tai chi. It may seem like a dance in space because a good taiji player is so smooth and flowing at their forms, it looks like they float. It's the strong legs from lots of practice, hehe. Fortunately for me, airheads don't last long in martial arts (or anything else, I reckon.) I think back now, Greg knew that. My karate instructor for sure knew that and he'd "strike while the iron's hot" until they floated off. Sooner rather than later, like smoke, they'd just fade into the ether.

I surprise myself that my attitude on tai chi airheads is still there.  Here's a couple of websites along the same way I'm thinking.

http://www.realtaichiuk.com

http://www.martialtaichi.co.uk/

Reorganized

The videos which I like to work out to are in their respective Pages, so what's left in the Home/Posts area are what I keep for interest or for reference. I gave the spear form its own page and deleted the videos I don't care to see again.

I've finished rewriting Breathing Exercise from my 1988 version.  I don't think I have to get the sequence exactly perfect, I hope it is. It seemed kind of flexible in class. It was helpful to me to focus into tai chi mode.  It was done after warm-ups (which was physically tiring on its own for the first year), but being in my early 20's at the time, I tried to time my arrival toward the end of warm-ups so I could just step into Breathing Exercise.

Deng Shi Hai

Goldmine!   The YouTube versions are in their respective pages.  No wonder YouTube's the more popular video hosting site.  Looks like the same videos but the long form is in one piece, rather than separated between 2nd & 3rd sections.

Saber form -- left handed, the way I learned it.

Forme Taiji avec sabre par Me Deng Shi Hai by AAMYTF 

Sword Form

Forme Taiji avec épée par Me Deng Shi Hai by AAMYTF

Trying to follow the empty hand forms.  Titles are in French, so I keep getting lost on which ones I've already seen.  This is Section 1 & 2.

Forme Taiji à main nue par Me Deng Shi Hai... by AAMYTF

Part 2  (Section 3)

Forme Taiji à main nue par Me Deng Shi Hai... by AAMYTF

Wang Zhihe

Also spelled Wang Tyzz-Her (per the class handout)...depends on the dialect.  He was Master Tu's instructor.  He was Deng Shi Hai's instructor.

First Section starts around 2:11 doesn't finish the section though


First & Second Section It's the same video that starts at the form and finishes second section.


Third Section
Hmmm, dunno.  Not seeing any other section all the way through. Would be nice.

Broadsword / Saber / Dao (Tao)

Found it!!   Link The right sequence, not the greatest form, but it's all there :)




The search for short form continues....
Meanwhile, the embedded videos weren't showing on iPad, so, at first I put a link to each video.  Then I found a way.  All good now :)

Like Like Like Like

I must compare this form to my notes.  Ok, it's not the sequence I'm looking for.  I don't care, this kid is awesome.



 

Bravo!  Well done!  He was 10 years old in 2007.  Imagine the progress.

 Edit:  Okay, it's not the same form.  This one is.  Their postures are less than stellar but the sequence is what I'm looking for at this time.

Vacation really is over

I found my way to get my cassette into mp3 format.  I would buy the original vinyl if I could find it.  But now I have side work so I can't convert it just now.  Oh well, I could use the money to pay for the converter.   I really need to practice physically, not just think about tai chi.

 

I could work out to this long form.  I should.  I will.

Try to use the word 'gank'

The initial blog-building spurt is over.  I was on vacation and stuck in the room for a week.  It was like being in really nice jail cell, in a really nice prison (with swimming pool) and the only place to get away was inside my head.  I wish I could blame the weather, but no, mother was not well and was even more needy and whiney than usual.  I've had tai chi on the brain for a couple months while I've been working out my illustrations.  So I got home and uploaded my lineage handout & 18-style handout, which is my first non-text additions to the site.  They don't need copyright protection, they were flyers & handouts, openly given to me.  But the website text is my work, my compilation, my research, my memory...and eventually, my own illustrations.  I don't mind other people read them, that's why I intend to publish it to the web.  I just don't want them copied without credit.  I tried the html code to disable right click & highlighting. I accidentally got around it without even thinking--whoops!  So I thought I might watermark JPG or PDF pages.  That's more work to GANK the text but it can be done.  Come to think of it, that's the main reason my Geocities site was stuck at the form outlines for 10 years.  I never got around to resolving my issues with copyright or credit, intellectual property, or whatever this is.  I'm a little smarter now, I don't intend to stay stuck.

Long Form





 

Until I can get my cassette digitized, I'm looking for the audio that matches.  In the course of searching, I found this gem which (closely) matches my long form notes. 

Videos - Rethinking the format of the Pages

The videos are new additions, not part of my original Tai Chi information/notes.  I would like to keep track of them as I find them so I can watch all the way through.  Typically what I'm finding is, at first glance "it's like what I was looking for" but when I sit through them or follow along, then I change my mind.  The keepers will be the videos I want to work out to.

 

That said, this was super interesting.  It started out like the short form I was looking for but it's not.  Still, it's an awesome example.

I've also decided how I'm going to tag these things.  I'm going use the "twitter convention" of #hashtags.

More work on 18-style

I thought I could add posts to pages to separate the information/thoughts. No.  So I guess I just keep adding more information to the bottom of the page.  Ooo, or I could turn on the reply feature.  I found another video using the same audio.  If you go deeper into his videos, there are two more chi kung videos with similar audio.  I'll have to explore this eventually.

Edit:  see "rethinking videos" post
OMG, I found it (click here) on YouTube with the same audio on my cassette tape!  Couple of notes:  She doesn't switch legs for "Scooping the Sea", she steps forward.  She doesn't lift legs for "Marching with Ball."

 

And (click) here.  This guy doesn't switch legs either.  He shifts to the side.  Might be for the camera angle, which is much better to see he is lifting his heels and toes with the back 'n forth motion.  Now in "Marching with Ball" he is lively, like my instructor would do a double bounce. That was always my favorite part.

Edit:  The video is still here.  I moved it to the 18-style page.  I still like the lady's example.  I guess I can relate to her better.  For following the workout, either is good.  But the video with the man is the better example of proper postures.

 

Note to self

Must find the original notes.  I've been working off my electronic files and typed out versions of the original notes.  There is a family tree, aka lineage, to scan.

Updates

Got alot done today.  It already equals the information I had published on my previous site, naturally, because I copied it off my original html.  So from here it's all new & improved.  I need to practice Breathing Exercise more before I continue writing it because I keep getting lost.  That means I don't know it well enough anymore to describe it, even while following my notes.  I'm well on my way to reaching my original 1999 vision for a tai chi page.  When I start adding illustrations, I will be surpassing my original vision because my drawing skills were yet undeveloped at that point.

Why am I doing this?

I started this quest in 1986 when I was considering taking up a martial art to divert my attention away from the shopping mall.  I just moved to Texas to take the next step in personal and professional growth.  New job, first apartment, 1500 miles away from family and friends.  Still hadn't found Tai Chi instruction a year later, but on a visit home, my brother demonstrated some practical Kempo self-defense.  When I got home, I found a Kenpo school which emphasized more self-defense and less competition as the other schools I looked at.  I figured even if I quit in a year, I'd still have the self-defense knowledge.

Not a year into Kenpo, I found a Tai Chi class at UT Arlington (Feb 1988) taught by Mr. Ho and Master Tu, sixth generation from the first Yang.  Ooo, should I? Could I do both at the same time?  I figured it was like  doing a heavy double major in college, like Mathematics and Engineering.  I didn't tell anyone for another year that I was learning another art.  I was kind of stuck in Kenpo because I was dating someone who was fanatic.

Whoops, somehow I stayed with Kenpo long enough to get black belt.  Then another.  A month short of another, I moved back to my family.  That is when all martial arts stopped.  I tried to continue my training but life issues, #1problemchild (Mom) pushes down the priority of dreams like this, especially when they're uncompensated.  That's when I made my Tai Chi webpage.  It was my "always available" reference before cloud hosting was a twinkle in anyone's twinkle.  That lasted nearly 10 years before Geocities stopped hosting personal web pages.

For the last 5 years, I've been trying to get back to my teachers for some refresher lessons.  I've forgotten all of it, and #1problemchild keeps me from getting back there.  Startng this blog, I am accepting it won't happen.  I've looked up & down YouTube, I can't find forms in the same sequence as they were taught to me.  I can see how this happens in Tai Chi, especially because Chinese always hold back.  My mother (is Chinese) has always told me to hold back some knowledge when I teach something.  I don't believe that's right.  Anyway, as this applies to Tai Chi, that means then next generation is less true and then generation after is less & less true to the original art.  I see that happening in Kenpo. 

It's one thing to evolve, take what works for you from one art to another.  But then it's a different art.  Different art, different name.  What if you don't have the whole art before you pass it to the next generation?  Same art, but weaker for all the holes in the knowledge base (the whole picture.)  This is how the art gets watered down.  So I know where my holes are.  Oh my, they've gotten as big as sink holes.  This is my attempt to fill in those holes.

So why don't I just pick a few forms from the web and follow their sequence of postures, after all it's still Tai Chi.  It's the same motion, just rearranged, right?   Um---not for me, not exactly.  I've got original audio recording to follow and to pace me.  It's in Chinese, and I don't understand it.  I used to use audio markers to know I was on the right track.  I hope to find a way to add it to this site eventually, if I can find a way to digitize it.

First post

I had a personal webpage on Yahoo!Geocities for over 10 years.  I had a section dedicated to Tai Chi page which listed movement names.  The plan was to expand that to step-by-step instruction, how to get from pose to pose, which I've had written out since 1989.  So now here it is, nearly 5 years later since they stopped hosting my web page, I'm just now getting around to putting it back up.  But now  my art skills are more advanced now to where I'm going to try to add illustrations.

Over a year ago I had this idea to illustrate Tai Chi forms with crash test dummies.  But I worked a lot of overtime and didn't get very far on my personal projects.   As I was looking for a name for this blog, I came across a couple of illustrated forms.  One, hosted on DeviantArt, was made by someone who used an art doll for a model.  He/she is a much better artist than me.  As cool as it looks on "paper," I don't think they actually practice a martial art or dance form.