What do you think about this Taiji?

[origami_itto]

But if you stay still it's fastest of all!

[windwalker]

Slow practice enables coordination with the mind allowing the mind to lead the movement..

Not the mind, following the body.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdPP0TmqKiU

[johnwang]

Have you ever tried to jump on a moving train? The slower the train moves, the easier you can jump on. The faster the train moves, the harder you can jump on.

You may be able to catch an arrow. It's difficult to catch a bullet. Because bullet is fast.

How can you react to an attack if you can't even see it coming?

[Trick]

Timing - your ability to read. You may have ability to read in slow speed. It doesn't mean that you will have ability to read in fast speed.

Speed - your ability to react. You may have ability to react in slow speed. It doesn't mean that you will have ability to react in fast speed.

we all know the slowness of the taiji form is not for the sake of slowness. the slowness works among things in the way of harness and maintain an unbroken awareness, especially in taijiquan the awareness is not one-sided but rather omnipresent so the slowness is crucial to get evereything in place.
as with all martial arts forms practice the work in a autosuggestive way, meaning one visualize stuff to work with.
the slow taijiquan is one long unbroken flow of exercising unbrakable awareness/reading, usefull in ones daily endevours and encounters - An exercise to stay ready so to not get ready, kind of.

[Trick]

Have you ever tried to jump on a moving train? The slower the train moves, the easier you can jump on. The faster the train moves, the harder you can jump on.

You may be able to catch an arrow. It's difficult to catch a bullet. Because bullet is fast.

How can you react to an attack if you can't even see it coming?

the slow flowing taijiquan is an ever aware awareness results in a relaxed but focused mind, a relaxed but focused body.
one of the few other exercises where one gain that same result is combat sparring.
the two forms are compatible

[twocircles13]

Slow practice enables coordination with the mind allowing the mind to lead the movement..

Not the mind, following the body.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdPP0TmqKiU

The video above is an excellent example of “Out with the hand, not out with the elbow,” nor shoulder, nor upper torso, nor head. There are other good reasons to lead out with the outside, which is usually the hand, besides just speed and avoiding telegraphing.

I was taught by some of teachers that...
We train slow to develop precision.
We train relaxed to develop speed.
And so on...

I weighed in on the need to train at multiple speed on Page 1

I think slow speed training of the form has its place, and it has some merit in neurological research, but so does speeding up and varying the cadence of movements. To me, these are all essential methods in form training.

Timing is an important issue too, as is distance. Speed and distance are kind of two sides of the same coin when manipulating timing. You can stay a constant distance and change speed to change the timing. You can keep the same cadence/speed and change the distance and it will also change the timing. This is really important in taijiquan, especially because we get in really close and crowd the opponent, so a small change in speed or distance have big results.

[origami_itto]

The video above is an excellent example of “Out with the hand, not out with the elbow,” nor shoulder, nor upper torso, nor head. There are other good reasons to lead out with the outside, which is usually the hand, besides just speed and avoiding telegraphing.

I was loudly of the opinion that the hand was always driven by the body, but I've since learned that, yes, the hand can not only lead the body but it can actually pull the body with it.
"a feather cannot be added; nor can a fly alight"

I think slow speed training of the form has its place, and it has some merit in neurological research, but so does speeding up and varying the cadence of movements. To me, these are all essential methods in form training.

Definitely. I don't know of anybody outside of a beginner's YMCA class that says you only do one form slowly all the time.

[wayne hansen]

Yang style is a complete system
If you don’t know the entire system
I ask why

[Steve James]

Forms training, slow or fast, is not fight training (sparring) is not fighting. Imo, an important part of tcc training is sensitivity. It's the equivalent of a general trying to find out what the enemy is going to do. It's not enough to have a bigger force or faster cavalry. It's about how they should be deployed. So, what all tcc styles share is a sensitivity exercise. It doesn't have to be done fast, but if the opponent is fast, it has to work then.

I.e., the problem is how to deal with someone faster and stronger. No form tells anyone that.

[Bao]

Forms training, slow or fast, is not fight training (sparring) is not fighting. Imo, an important part of tcc training is sensitivity.
...
I.e., the problem is how to deal with someone faster and stronger. No form tells anyone that.

Agree 100%. You need different types of partner practice. A lot. Tai Chi skill is based on four hands. The real skills is about sensitivity, as well as how you adapt your structure, angle and distance to your opponent. It doesn't matter how strong your yi is or how much qi you can mobilize in your form practice. Tai Chi still needs four hands.

[twocircles13]

In our tradition, training consisted of basics training, form training, and push-hands training. These were designed to reinforce each other. When you learned a push hands skill, you modified your practice of basics to reflect the knowledge, which, in turn, modified the form and reinforced and improved the push hands skill, and so on.

This wass only the First Road (yī lù, 一路) though, or as Chen small frame practitioners call it, the First Level (céng, 层 ). This was the old Chen style training tradition. Today, the Yilu simply refers to the Thirteen Postures form, and the Cannons Pounding form is called Erlu.

The Second Road (èr lù, 二路) consisted of form training, sǎnshǒu (散手) training, and weapons training. This level must be built on proficiency in the First Road, or it simply doesn’t work, or not well. Whereas, the training method of the First Road is push hands, which teaches the student to control both oneself and the opponent, the Second Road introduced a new training method, which taught the student to injure the opponent. In form training, previously learned forms were augmented with the new training method. Sanshou was of course learning to fight in the Taijiquan way. And, weapons training trained one to fight in armed conflict, which was the ultimate goal of traditional taiji training.

There are a host of reasons why this training method is no longer commonly used. Most modern teachers, blur the lines the two roads, if they even know that there were two roads, to give taijiquan a more martial flavor. But, IMO, this just leads to confusion in students who often draw incorrect conclusions about the art.

I share this, because I think it is helpful to understand the roots of the art. It has some other implications.

It is well known that the Chen family at various times adopted forms from other martial arts, these all seem to have been adapted by the principles and practices taught in the Thirteen Postures form and training. So, for example, Chen Family Red Fist training would be quite different from Red Fist training practiced elsewhere.

All traditional styles of taijiquan each practice a version of the Thirteen Postures form. This highlights the importance of the training that goes along with the form. I cannot see why the First Road synergistic method described above cannot be used with every style.

Once one is proficient in the skills of the First Road, its skills could be applied to many martial arts, sports fighting, and contact sports. This could be a modern training adaptation where we are not specifically looking to train self defense where the goal is to incapacitate or kill a potential killer.

[johnwang]

The Second Road (èr lù, 二路) consisted of form training, Sǎnshǒu (散手), and weapons training.

When one trains how to use his sword, he can't swing his sword as slow as he does in his slow Taiji form. The speed training is a must in the weapon training.