the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

The Earl Montague Old Yang form has it in the form of double spinning crescent kicks. One inside followed by outside, so you wind up facing the same way in same position.

The Cheng Ting Hung lineage is taught to practice reverse from, so there's that.

with form(s) you're not going to get every move in one even if you have it in your repertoire (as creator)
older Taiji systems had multiple forms, and were streamlined in the popularised system like YCF.

johnwang wrote:

Steve James wrote:Some teachers use the opposite side to teach.

Even if you teach the opposite side of the form, a "right leg outside crescent kick" will turn into a "left leg outside crescent kick". You will not reverse an "outside crescent kick" into an "inside crescent kick" (or reverse an uppercut into an overhand).

tbat's mirror, some teach reverse.
mirror is good for your brain at the least, but personally have only managed to take it so far. I even went to the trouble of creating my own short version to include all the moves that needed to be in it. I'll often just do the first section mirrored. GST sequence in particular is a must I think.
reverse would probably make my head explode, haven't even attempted it.

Actually, near the end of the traditional taiji form, we can see what looks like an inside crescent kick just before the last outside crescent kick.
- Wu style: slowed down so it looks like a posture
- Wu style (fast): sort of in between inside crescent and front kick
- Yang style: for some performers (e.g. Dong Yingjie) it looks more clear
- Yang style (fast): variable, but some have the last kick as a jumping outside crescent, using the inside crescent to jump

Some Yang style (including derivatives) seem to not have it, on the other hand (e.g. Chang style?).

But maybe the kick was just removed later on...

edededed wrote:Actually, near the end of the traditional taiji form, we can see what looks like an inside crescent kick just before the last outside crescent kick.
- Wu style: slowed down so it looks like a posture
- Wu style (fast): sort of in between inside crescent and front kick
- Yang style: for some performers (e.g. Dong Yingjie) it looks more clear
- Yang style (fast): variable, but some have the last kick as a jumping outside crescent, using the inside crescent to jump

Some Yang style (including derivatives) seem to not have it, on the other hand (e.g. Chang style?).

But maybe the kick was just removed later on...

Yeah I suppose you could think of/practice the spin before the kick hands (Lotus leg?) as an inside crescent kick.

Chen Xiao Wang had told me that because of the length and complexity of the Taijiquan forms that it was basically mandated that all the teachers only teach the right side of the form. So that no matter what teacher you were learning from, or watching your senior students practicing alongside you, everyone would always be on the same page. In private is where you would teach yourself the left or mirrored side. There’s an old saying “I will teach you the right side, but it’s up to you to learn the left side.”
He also said that Dan Lian (Single Strike/ Movement Practice) is important so they would always be drilling both left and right sides alternating.

origami_itto wrote:Yeah I suppose you could think of/practice the spin before the kick hands (Lotus leg?) as an inside crescent kick.

To use the inside crescent kick to set up body rotation, and then followed with an outside crescent kick is a very logic combo.

I like crescent kick. It tests whether my flexibility is still remaining or not.

johnwang wrote:The 108 moves Yang Taiji form has one right leg "outside crescent kick". I assume the left leg "outside crescent kick" is not in the form because the form creator might assume that students could reverse the form themselves. But what I don't understand is why the "inside crescent kick" is not in the form. We may assume that if the form creator understood the "outside crescent kick", he should also understand the "inside crescent kick". Why did he include one but not the other?

What's your opinion on this?

In the traditions through which I have been taught, forms are pedagogical frameworks, a sequence which a teacher and student follow to learn a martial art. That’s why generally speaking they begin with easier or foundation movements and progress to harder, more advanced, or more complex (less foundational) movements.They bring up topics or skills the teacher needs to teach. There is a difference between learning a form (the outside shell) and being taught the skills that compose the form.

Skipping a lot of other form usage stuff, to your question, your assumption agrees with the way I was taught. The teacher teaches you one side, and it is up to you to practice both sides. Not all of my teachers have taught this way though.

Both kicks are in the Thirteen Postures form from which all “taijiquan” forms descend. There are several Lotus kicks or Double wave lotus, an outward crescent. The Tornado kick is a spinning inward crescent, and technically a flying, spinning inward crescent, though rarely done that way. To learn this most challenging kick, one must train the inward crescent ad nauseam. So, to learn the inward crescent and separate single inward crescent kick is not necessarily required.

Why doesn’t it appear in the Yang 105? That is an evolutionary question. It does not seem to have been a listed movement in the Yang form in 20th century, however most of our form name list are from the Guoshu movement period. The publications especially were designed to present a taijiquan that everyone could do, but, as I said before, the spinning inward crescent is a challenging movement.

Why drop the name instead of just teaching a stationary inward crescent? That gets into the mind and thinking of probably Yang Shaohou, Wu Jianquan, and Yang Chengfu who were the standard bearers of the period. As mentioned before, it may have just been incorporated into a "turn the body” movement, and on one thought to add an inward crescent as stand alone movement.

What is the lineage of the 13 Postures Form

Hi Wayne,

The Chinese characters are 十三勢 Shi San Shi. It gets translated all sorts of ways, Thirteen Dynamics, Thirteen Powers, Thirteen Gestures, Thirteen Movements, and so on, because 勢 is a bit hard related to martial arts to translate into English. I go with Thirteen Postures with the caveat that these are dynamic postures not static.

I think it was Tang Hao who first found reference to it in old Chen Family records as he discovered root forms practiced by the family.

Yang Banhou in his writings from about 1875 refers to the form as 十三勢長拳解 (Shísān shì cháng quán jiě) Thirteen Postures Long Fist Divisions.

Li Yiyu in his text from which we derive most of the Taiji Classics, refers the form as 十三勢架 (Shísān shì jià), the Thirteen Postures Frame. He then names 53 movements in the first published list of form names.

So is it a form you practice or have seen or one u have read about

wayne hansen wrote:So is it a form you practice or have seen or one u have read about

Virtually all taijiquan practitioners practice an evolutionary version of the Thirteen Postures form. It is the taijiquan form, however the name usage seems to have gone out of fashion by WWII.

So, to answer your question, Yes, I practice a version of the Thirteen Postures that has been transmitted seven to nine times since it was the primary part of a larger curriculum taught in the Chen family.

So what form do you practice and from who that you call 13 postures
The way you talked about 13 postures I though you meant you practiced an old form
No form I have ever practiced dosent have 13 postures

In the Xiong Yanghe system of Taiwan, the Shisanshi is the basic beginner form (25 moves), before one progresses to the longform. It seems that many Yang lineages do have that Shisanshi, like Mizhuan etc.

wayne hansen wrote:So what form do you practice and from who that you call 13 postures
The way you talked about 13 postures I though you meant you practiced an old form
No form I have ever practiced dosent have 13 postures

Yes, I think you read into my statements something I did not say. The Thirteen Postures form is the one we all practice with their inherent variations if you practice Taijiquan. I have been working of Taijiquan form comparisons long enough that I forget that this is not common knowledge.

I said,

Both kicks are in the Thirteen Postures form from which all “taijiquan” forms descend.

If you look at extant published lists of names of the movements in the form, many of which call the form the Thirteen Postures, they all follow the same framework with only minor variations. In fact there are as just about as many variation over time in a single lineage as between lineages. Although the Yang 105 doesn’t name the Tornado Kick in its 105 count, it is quite likely that it is still there, but unlabeled and perhaps simplified. This would be one of those minor variations, but the Yang 105 still has enough in common with earlier forms that it would certainly be a version of the Thirteen Postures form.

That was the point.

origami_itto wrote:

edededed wrote:Actually, near the end of the traditional taiji form, we can see what looks like an inside crescent kick just before the last outside crescent kick.
- Wu style: slowed down so it looks like a posture
- Wu style (fast): sort of in between inside crescent and front kick
- Yang style: for some performers (e.g. Dong Yingjie) it looks more clear
- Yang style (fast): variable, but some have the last kick as a jumping outside crescent, using the inside crescent to jump

Some Yang style (including derivatives) seem to not have it, on the other hand (e.g. Chang style?).

But maybe the kick was just removed later on...

Yeah I suppose you could think of/practice the spin before the kick hands (Lotus leg?) as an inside crescent kick.

I haven't seen anyone perform a medium frame or large frame Yang Style TCC form set as described here, using the rightward spinning movement of the left leg to execute a realistically viable rear facing inside crescent kick while transitioning from Retreat To Ride Tiger into the outside crescent kick of Turn To Pat Crescent Moon (Lotus Kick) executed in the opposite direction.

However, some early versions of these Yang Style forms include a left leg inside crescent kick immediately following the outside crescent kick, and then placing the left leg to the rear in the same position as usually seen in the Bend Bow To Shoot Tiger posture. This is much more easily done and is more believable as an efficient kick combo, imo. Of course, as always, ymmv.