Observed a class
Well.. I just observed a class today in this style. First off, it was much different from what i had expected. The interpretation of this style at this school incorporate a lot of buddhist and yogic type references in the training hall. When I first arrived, the class was doing some basic 2 person push hands exercises. One thing I noticed was that the frame seemed much more “compact” than what I had expected since i heard it was a yang/chen mixture. In addition, I was not expected to see in their practice of the "bow stance’ the heels were in a line. The back leg was rounded out, but the heels were in line with each other producing an almost “sideways” bow stance.
The teacher then came around, introduced herself to me and then attended to the students. There were 2 other senior students helping and all the instructors seemed to provide a lot of attention to weight shifts and relaxation points on the body to the students. I also noticed that when the students bowed to each other, they peformed a 2 handed praying type position with deep bows originating at the waist, almost with a “zen-like” mind set.
Then came time to perform the grand long form. At this time, they dimmed the lights and then put one a “christmas” light that was strung around the room for ambiance. At this time, one of the students grabbed a buddhist like chime which was composed of 2 cymbals like objects attached with a string between them. The student then proceeded to chime the cymbals in sets of three, and then the instructor also proceeded to chime back with her own set. Then they played some music on a small cassette player.
The music was rather strange in my mind. Bear in mind that I’m used to asian cultural music since I am asian so i’m fairly familiar with cultural music. The music that i heard can only be described as “strange” in my mind. Perhaps some sort of tibetan or new-age type of meditation music which consisted of cymbals and gongs that produced almost a transient trance-like dark atmosphere. I felt a bit weird at first but then the form commenced.
The form began in a wuji type posture with the arms extended out from the body with the palms facing behind the. The arms extended out about 2 arms width, then they did a deep bow with both hands in a praying position and then kinda rolled up. The form was performed at almost at the speed of a qigong type of form. From my experience, the form looked to be more of a qigong/sun style mix as opposed to a chen/yang mix. There was a lot of repition of wave hands like clouds with a sun style flair, so palms faced down. I didn’t really see a lot of traditional chen moves that i was expecting to see. I was expecting to either see some of the ‘buddha pounds the mortar’ or ‘lazily tying the coat’ but the stances were more rounded like chen style however heels were in lined. Some of the transistions reminded me more of US style CMC transitions, especially in their execution of the ‘single whip’ with the wrists bent down then lifting the palm up at the end.
I did see some faster movements and fajing type movements. The transitions from one move to the next were almost erraditic in that the foot came out and settled down quickly, and then slowly shifted weight to the front foot to execute the moves. Also saw a jump kick and a fast progressive almost cannon fist type of advance that consisted of 4-5 attacks. I also saw some squating type of moves with a double palm push that resembled the wushu nanquan (southern boxing) style form. Like I said before, saw at least 5 times in which wave hands was performed. I was later told that was the linking between the sections.
Overall, it was very interesting to see, however I don’t feel this particular interpretation of the style is for me. Much more meditational in nature and the form much more qigong like than I had hoped for. Also, the mixing of religious type of elements and performance of the form with “weird” music in the dark kinda threw me off. However, I spoke with some of the practitioners and they really enjoyed practicing the particular style. It seemed to have a lot of internal energy cultivation techniques, but much more “yin” than I had thought. Perhaps I’m just not ready to practice this style yet.
I tried to keep the comments objective as possible. Any feedback from pracitioners with their thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Like I said, it’s not just the right/school style for me, but it was a great experience to broaden my taiji exposure.
A.
