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.