Based on what i have experienced through the years of taiji training i have come up to conclusions that short forms are absolutley useless for development of real gong fu. the grandmasters all practiced long forms and repeatedly practiced long forms for many decades of there training.
short forms are lacking of the complete sets and are just for stimulating the meridans for health while the longer forms begin to train the extraordinary power channels used in gong fu.
that is why i practice a few sets of long form and really feel it in my legs afterwards.
The length of the form has jack squat to do with developing skill.
I usually don’t post too often.. but I think this is important.
If you want to talk about how past masters trained, it was simply not just form practice. Any good master has spent plenty of time repeating even one movement over and over, day after day. This is gong.
One movement done correctly is worth more then one thousand done incorrectly, of course it might take one thousand tries to get the one movement right.
Short forms, are by there nature condensed versions of something longer. If your looking for movement the longer ones might have more varied movements. If you’re looking for principles then I think the shorter ones should be enough.
It depends on your view point. The from is a tool to help you get to a place not the place itself.
There are very few repeats in the Mien Chuan sets but multiple repeats in the Yang Cheng Fu 108. The reason is that one is for combat and the other is for internal organ health and healing on the physical and spiritual levels.
I agree that for health, the short forms are sorely lacking. For combat applications? well if they have been boiled down to essence then perhaps it’s not so bad, but there is also a jiben gong/raison d’etre involved in long set work. Forms were only made short to make it easier for people with no patience or time to learn them, apart from that, they have no value IMHO.
I beg to differ dude!… I’ll stand by my statement and leave it just like you found it, kay?
If you are refering to the original 13 postures then sure, they were built upon well after the fact. What comes down from The Yangs is not what I would call short form.
Short forms today are great when teaching in a commercial ($$$) school. Thats why there exist so many different short sets in Chen now. Each has created there own. I believe there are four 38 movement sets now.
I teach a short 10 & 16 movement Wu before learning the Medium length and long length forms. (has served me great in teaching “Short” term beginning students. At least they’ve finsihed something before they quit.
Yep right on the head. The original sets were very short. And yes there are benefits in doing both short and long sets. (also practice HG and history has it that WFH knew over 12 hand sets and was able to combine them to create the core 3 sets we have today.
but for direct fighting skills I like short forms and lots of individual technique repetitions alone and with a partner.
I’m in agreement that both long and short have their place.
I also believe that their is more to training in an internal system than just the forms themselves. You need to break that form down and do the individual peices until you have ‘got them’.
Bamboo said something very proper here, “One movement done correctly is worth more then one thousand done incorrectly, of course it might take one thousand tries to get the one movement right.”
My main thing here is that you must go beyond the external shell of the form - you need to learn what each movement means and how it is done properly with true internal power. This is vital to getting it. Just doing the form - no matter how long or short - is worthless unless you know how to train the movements.
There is an extremely important Qigong element in the long forms, thats comes only through the practice of the long forms. It’s the difference between standing qigong for 5 mins and 30 mins.
As far as applications go and breaking down the form and getting into applications, sure, who can argue with the obvious? It is the enormous health benefits that are diminished by way of the shortened forms.
Why can’t you just do a short form over and over againg without stopping?
Benefits might not be as great as a long form simply due to less variations in movement; but for many of the folks that study Taiji for health and not for martial capability - doing anything besides sitting on their a$$ is better.
I think doing single movements could be good at first , but if you want to go high-level , I would guess you need both long forms to develop all the combinations of energies and fighting techniques together . I only practice the beginning of cannon fist because I don’t know all of it , and it’s still good to do the part I know.
It has been my understanding that the repetitions in the long form were to emphasize that movement’s importance.. Long form or short, it is the intentions of the student that will determine the usefulness.. a corretly motivated student will find the obvious and the subtle benefits in the lessons being taught.. Whichever is “better” is truly a matter of preference.. repetitions of a short form may be equally as beneficial as the longer version, but either, done incorrectly or with poor attitude, will do little but fill some time… The short form has satisfied my needs many times when time was at a premium, it has merit when there is simply insufficient time to go through my normal 2 hour session.. (business trips, etc…) Most of the short forms i am familiar with have good principle, good application, and are far better than no form at all..
a cheng man ching 37 form practioner once asked me..
why do you practice the long form? that was the dumbest thing i had ever heard. the short forms are simply imcomplete and made to teach because people are simply getting dumber. first there was a 24 form and then a 37 form and now a 12 form and a 8 form. they keep simplifying the simplyified forms. the real essence is in the long form what the grand masters call hua jing. yes you can repeat and master small movements and get quality over quantity, but after becoming competent in the small, the long form. the long form is what came from chen village, it was already perfect.
as for the cheng man ching guys- they can chose to practice their incomplete system. i will stay with my complete system with long forms, broadsword, straight sword , spear, staff and pushands, da lu and more.
I’m afraid we are of the same opinion at my own school and short forms don’t get much respect for the same reasons you have stated also. When the old master were stating that Taijiquan was being watered down, they were talking about the alterations of the original long forms… if it ain’t broke why fix it?
so I guess Chen Xiao Wong and the other diamonds are dumb for creating short forms???
And when did the Chen STyle become a “Complete/perfect style” As far as I know they are still adding things to it so what Chen Wan Ting created must of been “incomplete/imperfect”?
Wow have you seen that “double straight sword set” what a piece of crap. I guess the creativity bone is broken as they just used the double saber form as its base. 2 different weapons totally.
In all everything has its place and calling people dumb won’t help.
also when have YOU touched hands with the Chen Man Ching guys??
A friend of a friend went to the local Chen Man Ching school in my locale recently and found there was a total emphasis on push hands and nothing else. The guy has done Taiji for many years but now does I Chuan and rolls in BJJ for fun once a week with friends.
The Chen guys kept saying “all you need for fighting is right here in push hands”, so in the end my friends buddy just picked the guy up and threw him over his shoulder! His push hands did nothing to prevent this from happening…
I think there’s allot of this kind of ignorance and arrogance in the Taiji community which is the source of so much scoffing from other martial arts communities. Thank the heavens though that all our schools are not the same.
“I think there’s allot of this kind of ignorance and arrogance in the Taiji community which is the source of so much scoffing from other martial arts communities.”
you might be suprised to find out who the fighters of martial arts today(mma) who are aquainted with tcc find to be good and who they consider not