Why is TCC form put together a certain way

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Re: Why is TCC form put together a certain way

Postby Bhassler on Mon Oct 16, 2017 9:38 am

KEND wrote:I think that we can take care of the physical and power aspects but part of the regimen should be, at least for older people. retaining the brain plasticity. Thus a longer more complex form which is asymmetric you cause more neuronal activity. Added to this it should be possible to have variations, doing the same form every day is not going to help the brain find new pathways


I would argue that the choreography is not the form. If the form is done with awareness and active intent, then no two are ever the same. Certainly, there is need for novelty, but that can come from experiences that cause one to view the same thing with different eyes, so to speak, rather than choreography changes.
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Re: Why is TCC form put together a certain way

Postby Rhen on Mon Oct 16, 2017 12:54 pm

I have a book somewhere that explains the form in terms of Taoist cosmology. that is why TCC form is put together in a certain way. I'll look for it and share passages from it.
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Re: Why is TCC form put together a certain way

Postby Steve James on Mon Oct 16, 2017 1:28 pm

If the issue is mental training, forms exercise the memory. But, I also think that learning a choreography is simply a way to transmit a tradition. Usage, imo, is a separate subject.
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Re: Why is TCC form put together a certain way

Postby origami_itto on Mon Oct 16, 2017 8:40 pm

Da Liu in "T'ai Chi Ch'uan & Meditation" lays out how he believes the movements in the Yang long form stimulate the Chi in precise circulations. The order of the movements in this model are arranged so as to maximize the alchemical benefit.

I was also taught that the Yang long form was originally composed of five shorter forms. If you are aware of the divisions and familiar with the content of each of the sections, you can the purposes that each serves. There's a progression and development of ideas from the simpler and less directly martial to the more complex and more overtly martial as well as the circulation aspects.
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Re: Why is TCC form put together a certain way

Postby Trick on Mon Oct 16, 2017 10:21 pm

KEND wrote:I think that we can take care of the physical and power aspects but part of the regimen should be, at least for older people. retaining the brain plasticity. Thus a longer more complex form which is asymmetric you cause more neuronal activity. Added to this it should be possible to have variations, doing the same form every day is not going to help the brain find new pathways

I would say you have never practiced TJQ
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Re: Why is TCC form put together a certain way

Postby Trick on Mon Oct 16, 2017 10:46 pm

oragami_itto wrote:Da Liu in "T'ai Chi Ch'uan & Meditation" lays out how he believes the movements in the Yang long form stimulate the Chi in precise circulations. The order of the movements in this model are arranged so as to maximize the alchemical benefit.

I was also taught that the Yang long form was originally composed of five shorter forms. If you are aware of the divisions and familiar with the content of each of the sections, you can the purposes that each serves. There's a progression and development of ideas from the simpler and less directly martial to the more complex and more overtly martial as well as the circulation aspects.

There seem to be that 15-20 minutes stages where one feel more smooth and correctly relaxed going "deeper" in the exercise . The long YTJQ forms usually have these time duration. Doing the form three times in a row feels as an good exercise. But of course any exercise that one feel good doing feels as an good exercise 8-)
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Re: Why is TCC form put together a certain way

Postby Appledog on Tue Oct 17, 2017 12:22 am

Hello, I'd like to maintain a 'cool post count' of 108 posts. This particular post has gone beyond that number and has therefore expired.

I'm sorry if you were looking for some old information but I'll do my best to answer you if you send me a DM with a question in it.
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Re: Why is TCC form put together a certain way

Postby Wuyizidi on Mon Feb 26, 2018 11:20 pm

KEND wrote:I'm sure this question has been asked before, I applied it to Hsing yi but found no satisfactory answers. In TCC forms there are a certain number of techniques which are repeated, others which are not. Is this determined by frequency of use or ones favored by the creator. If you were given the 13 postures would you do it differently



The form practice is designed to give you ample amount of training within 1 training session of 3 sets the 8 Taiji Quan methods applied in all directions (5 gates) while maintaining the basic 9 alignments, performed to strict adherence to the 5 requirements, achieving 6 integration (coordination of physical movements, lead by correct shifting of xin and yi).


Since the form is designed to acquire Taiji Quan skill, there are then 3 major aspects of what to include: we want to repeat movements that, 1) within one skill, represent one or more classical taiji quan skills (8 methods = 4 main methods, 4 assistant methods). Some, like Lan Que Wei, contain all 4 of the major skills. 2) Some, like Yu Nu Chuan Sui (fair maiden work the shuttles), is especially challenging in terms of maintaining the 9 alignments. And finally, 3) the length of the form is designed to be challenging in terms of maintaining the 5 requirements of practice (song man yuan huo, zhong zhen an shu...)

There are certain practices that if you do it for a brief duration (1, 2, 5 minutes each time), even if you do that every day for decades, you'll still barely scratch the surface. Meditation, Qigong, Zhan Zhuang, and internal martial art are like that. To enter the required state for the body and the mind requires that each training session be long enough.

The traditional Taiji form is to be completed in ~50 minutes. And in the old days people did 3 sets in each session. It's a huge challenge not just for the body, but for the mind (to maintain concentration).

For the body, if you design a form of that length, you need it to properly warm up in the beginning, and cool down near the end. So there has to be a natural physical rhythm to it, from easy to difficult, to easy again. This is why most of the kicking movements are deeper in the form.

Each of the classical skills, like Lan Que Wei (peng lu ji an), Yun Shou (overlapping shifts in xin and yi), etc, will be repeated multiple times, in multiple directions. It's expected that mentally, in the beginning you're not at your deepest, most concentrated state, so there has to be enough high quality reps later in the form.

The sequencing also take into consideration the space it's supposed to take. So you can't design a form that goes on forever in one direction, also you want to practice footwork (the 5 gates) in each direction in equal measure, so ideally you have equal number of steps in each direction. One area that most beginners don't pay attention to, but was actually a key part of form design is that you are supposed to end up on the exact same spot you started in. If you didn't, you need to retrace your steps carefully to see where your step is too big or small, wide or narrow. This is no simple task, as there are several types of steps, each with its own standards on length and width.

When we say 13 postures, we don't mean there are 13 postures that express everything that is possible with human body, but these are postures that can be regarded as classical representations of Taiji principle and its main skills (4 main methods, 4 assistant methods).

So the other less repeated skills are ones that don't embody as many of the principles as these classical ones (like Lan Que Wei), but are still useful, like the 4 assistant skill (cai lie zou kao). We also want to have a representative sample of shou fa - common application ideas likely encountered in any kind of martial art fighting (common ti da shuai na skills). So sequencing wise they are useful fillers to be placed at appropriate points to satisfy all the requirements above.

In terms of mental training: since the late 50's short forms with little or no repetition has become popular. Most of them finish from 18 to 22 minutes. There is nothing wrong with those. Again, "external martial art practice is designed to enhance natural abilities, internal martial art practice is designed to fundamentally alter natural abilities". Before something new becomes the new second nature, we need to actively monitor the process, hence the slow pace of practice. It is much easier to maintain that total concentration for 22 minutes than 50 minutes. If you lose concentration and put the body on auto-pilot, then you're practicing the body's natural ability again, undoing the work. That's like stepping on the gas when the car is point at a wrong direction. You'll still get a physical workout, but practice-wise you're no closer to the goal. Even in bodybuilding, no one advocate doing large volume of something using the incorrect way. Lots of people actually prefers the short form, as they think the level of mental concentration is higher in each set, and they get more benefit from say the same 1 hour practice. This is especially true if you go from one set to another without stop.

In terms of focus on each of the three sets: people usually say take it easy in the first set, let you body and mind enter the state gradually, naturally. The first set just pay attention to physical part, the alignments, the three external integrations, etc. In the second set, pay less attention to the physical part directly, but focus on application intent. Doing that provides great shen training. And if your shen is in the right place (ex. this movement is a block to the eye level), then the physical movement will automatically be correct as well. Correct external movement leads to correct internal feeling (include qi feeling). And over time the presence or absence of those feelings will serve as a natural guide to your practice. And then the final set you forget movement and originally intended application, focus instead on xin - how you're feeling, if at some point you feel open and expansive, do that physically, if some point you feel the springiness of the spine and other 4 bows, express that, if you feel pent up energy, be more explicit in your fajin, if you feel connected smoothness, go with that flow...
Last edited by Wuyizidi on Mon Feb 26, 2018 11:55 pm, edited 18 times in total.
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Re: Why is TCC form put together a certain way

Postby KEND on Tue Feb 27, 2018 11:16 am

Thanks for your input. My exposure to TCC adds up to about 7 years. I have studied Yang[Da liu, Wang], Chen[Pan], Hao[Dong], Wu[Delza] and am familiar with Liang Yi and Sun. I don't claim expertise in these arts, I studied them mainly to see how they worked and how power was generated. I was curious to know why, for example Single Whip was repeated but not fan through back. Was it a quirk of the original teacher or does it have a deeper reason. In Hsing yi which I have studied at length there are repetitions of certain basic techniques and individual animal forms but I have not found a good reason for the order of techniques except where they follow a 'creation' or 'destruction ' sequence. When I studied LHBF my teacher said that the sequence related to energy flow, it would need the equivalent of a 'frame by frame' analysis to find if this has credence
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Re: Why is TCC form put together a certain way

Postby Wuyizidi on Tue Feb 27, 2018 10:51 pm

KEND wrote:Thanks for your input. My exposure to TCC adds up to about 7 years. I have studied Yang[Da liu, Wang], Chen[Pan], Hao[Dong], Wu[Delza] and am familiar with Liang Yi and Sun. I don't claim expertise in these arts, I studied them mainly to see how they worked and how power was generated. I was curious to know why, for example Single Whip was repeated but not fan through back. Was it a quirk of the original teacher or does it have a deeper reason. In Hsing yi which I have studied at length there are repetitions of certain basic techniques and individual animal forms but I have not found a good reason for the order of techniques except where they follow a 'creation' or 'destruction ' sequence. When I studied LHBF my teacher said that the sequence related to energy flow, it would need the equivalent of a 'frame by frame' analysis to find if this has credence


Can't speak about Xingyi, but in Taiji, single whip is one the most common/popular application idea in all of Chinese martial art. It's in just about every Chang Quan style that preceded the development of Taijiquan. It's one of those techniques where if you really use Taijiquan skill, it take so much less effort to throw the opponent than the traditional Chang Quan way. You will know you got it when neither the thrower nor the throwee feels much resistance from each other. The thrower feels like he hadn't exerted any force, and the throwee fell before he even realizes there's a force on him that he needed to respond to. And this is all made possible by putting your mind NOT on the spot you force make contact with the opponent.

One of the most common criticism of state of internal martial art today is many people are using internal martial art techniques in an external way. This is possible because many of the skills evolved from external martial art. So Single Whip is an important one (and relatively easy one) for people to practice and understand the difference. Shan Tongbei I feel like is a much smaller movement with very simple application idea, there's not nearly as much internal martial art content as Single Whip...

In theory all modern day Taiji Quan long forms (except Zhaobao?) should be the same, as they all came from Chen Changxing. Different schools have different counts: in Yang it's 108, in Wu it's 83. But it's actually the same number of total movements, it just sometimes in one school people count one big techniques as several. Until martial art was taught to public in the early 1900's, forms weren't as standardized as they are today. But once you teach the public, and have to hold large classes where everyone need to do the same thing at the same time, you have to have a single standard. Later on members of 6 families did make changes to the form, a lot of that dependents on the preference and personality of the master - each master naturally put more emphasis on the things he likes or think is more important...

Ultimately though, none of these techniques are important once we get the ability. The Taijiquan 13 postures, just like the 64 Bagua postures, they are but classical examples that embodies the underlying principles. It's like we teach children 1 apple + 1 apple = 2 apples, 1 orange + 1 orange = oranges... They put in enough rep of that exercises, the next time they see something they never saw before, like say aliens, they would go, oh, there are two objects of same type here. It's not like external martial art, where we keep techniques secret, or hope to in a fight use the technique exactly as it as fast as possible. Hence the saying "we practice skills so we can finally forget skills". The range of possible actions the opponent can do is limited only by imagination, our response cannot be limited by the techniques in the form. The form gives a natural ability to deal with any incoming force by not resisting it directly. If we really can do that we don't have to care if dan bian or shan tong bei is the right response.
Last edited by Wuyizidi on Tue Feb 27, 2018 11:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Why is TCC form put together a certain way

Postby GrahamB on Wed Feb 28, 2018 4:47 am

KEND wrote:I'm sure this question has been asked before, I applied it to Hsing yi but found no satisfactory answers. In TCC forms there are a certain number of techniques which are repeated, others which are not. Is this determined by frequency of use or ones favored by the creator. If you were given the 13 postures would you do it differently


It's not a popular opinion amongst Chinese martial artists, but I don't think the form exists in the order it exists because of any clever consideration of qi flow, or repetition of key martial ideas, or a genius way to exercise every muscle of your body in a particular order...

Instead, think the Tai Chi form is put together the way it is because it is telling a story. You are acting out a story - a ritual. It's meaning may have simply been lost over the years, not to mention changed time and time again for different purposes over the years. Perhaps it is not telling the original story it started out telling. Who knows? It is older than living memory.

I don't think "martial artists" type people like this idea because it challenges their sense of identity, of who they are. It's an attack on the REAL FIGHTING they are learning. But of course, we all create our own meaning for the form, since we are the people right now who are actually doing it. It's original intent and purpose belongs to people long dead.

I think that's where it comes from though. Of all the explanation I find it the most likely.

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Re: Why is TCC form put together a certain way

Postby Steve James on Wed Feb 28, 2018 7:00 am

A guy name Henning put forward that theory 30 years ago: i.e., that the origins of contemporary tcma forms lay in Chinese Opera (dance), religious rituals, and folk practices to which the martial elements were necessary, but secondary. In slow tcc forms, the artistic or meditative origins are more overt. In Shaolin derived forms, the martial aspects are more overt. Hey, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and Jet Li are all products of the opera system --that morphed into the popular "wu shu" seen at competitions.

It's true that contemporary martial artists don't like to think of their arts as dances --art, meditation or health exercise-- or anything other than martial. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBIJxJzu_L8

I don't know whether the order of moves makes any difference when it comes to application. If the opponent doesn't do tcc, I think ya have to make the order up on the spot.
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Re: Why is TCC form put together a certain way

Postby Bao on Wed Feb 28, 2018 8:32 am

It's not a popular opinion amongst Chinese martial artists, but I don't think the form exists in the order it exists because of any clever consideration of qi flow, or repetition of key martial ideas, or a genius way to exercise every muscle of your body in a particular order...


No, I don't believe that the arrangement has very much to do with qi or similar, but there are certain patterns in Tai Chi forms you can see in other styles forms as well. The movements are repeated and structured into "threes" and "fives". You can also see that many forms start off more stationary and become more movable and varied later on as it progress (kicks in most tai chi forms comes late.). Most of it has probably more to do with how to teach rather than anything else. First you learn to stand, then walk, then change between directions and after that learning kicks and more advanced footwork. A very simple way to arrange movements according to a path of progression, it doesn’t need to be more complicated than that.

GrahamB wrote:Instead, think the Tai Chi form is put together the way it is because it is telling a story. You are acting out a story - a ritual. It's meaning may have simply been lost over the years, not to mention changed time and time again for different purposes over the years.


Seems backwards and not very practical to first have a story and then arrange the fighting movements to fit the story. I don’t agree with half of what was said in that video. I would suggest that arranging individual movements and drills into longer sets have more to do with military strategy and weaponry than anything else. When you have one or several rows of spear fighters, you need to arrange their attacking strategy so they work together and don’t hit each other all of the time. The spears must be used together like cogs. But to be able do this, the soldiers need to train different ways to use their weapons when they change direction to strike or defend with the weapon. So the Chinese spear soldiers had their own position in the row. Different positions trained different sets that were put together into shorter and longer drills so they learned how to change directions without knocking or butchering each other. This is IMO the most reasonable cause for putting individual movements and drills together in sequences, and not ritual dance.
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Re: Why is TCC form put together a certain way

Postby Steve James on Wed Feb 28, 2018 8:51 am

The argument about spears works for xingyi and spears, but what weapon would a tcc form or bagua circle-walking be related to in military practice?

The argument about "telling a story" might not work for any complete "form", but the names of individual movements are named in order to make memorization and transmission easier. However, it is also true that the "meaning" of a particular posture's name is interpreted differently, especially in terms of application. We can argue forever about what Single Whip or even Brush Knee means, but it meant something to the person who named it.

Anyway, to Ken's question, I think it'd be better to ask why the Shaolin form movements are performed in the order they are.
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Re: Why is TCC form put together a certain way

Postby GrahamB on Wed Feb 28, 2018 9:02 am

Steve - a lot of Shaolin forms look, rather obviously, like the sort of thing you'd produce after being 'possessed' by the spirit of an animal (monkey, tiger, crane), etc, or by the spirit of a famous warrior or genereal from the past. People regularly performed rituals in which they used spirit possession to reach back into the world of the dead and find famous practitioners to teach them how to fight, etc.. There's not much demand for that in the karate class at the YMCA or the MMA gym these days... :)
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