Not applying moves as they appear in the form

[Ian]

What are your thoughts on this?

For example, brush knee twist step.



In this case, the lower hand brushes from one side to the other side of the body.

If you do a round kick defense like this:



...do you call that brush knee twist step?

I wouldn't. To me it looks like a completely different movement.

But this round kick defense seems to be the most popular explanation for brush knee twist step. Why?

It seems many taichi guys have the habit of adopting moves that look effective and claiming they're already "in taichi" - conveniently, in taichi 'one move can have a thousand applications' so pretty much everything is "in taichi" - instead of trying to figure out how a movement should correctly be applied in their style.

Didn't Yang chengfu say "one must execute techniques correctly", meaning to the inch? This begs the question:

Does a practitioner, by merely taichi-fying common moves like reaping throws and chokes, sell himself short?

And if the application for brush knee twist step were really the same as what Cung Le is showing, why not practice it that way in the form?

[count]

First, this isn't the basic application that is shown to beginners in tai chi chuan for using brush knee against a kick. It is the opposite. But the reason beginners are shown that usage, block kick and push through, is to give them the idea of the shape and coordination of the form. Later, a student learns lots of ways to apply the form. And it is pretty much identical to the form in application.

Second, If you wonder why I say the video is the opposite, here's a hint. Usually tai chi application doesn't take a kick full on. Think about brushing your opponents knee, instead of your own.

[Wanderingdragon]

Cung le's app is as far from Tai Chi As one can get, it is catch knee with ribs and don't let go while trying to reach opponents chest and push down. if the opponent leans forward on the trapped leg it becomes a heavy and buredensome object tying up one of you weapons, while he reaches in and wraps his arms around the back of you head to maintain balance, at best you end up grappling.

[Bhassler]

It seems many taichi guys have the habit of adopting moves that look effective and claiming they're already "in taichi" - conveniently, in taichi 'one move can have a thousand applications' so pretty much everything is "in taichi" - instead of trying to figure out how a movement should correctly be applied in their style.

Didn't Yang chengfu say "one must execute techniques correctly", meaning to the inch? This begs the question:

Does a practitioner, by merely taichi-fying common moves like reaping throws and chokes, sell himself short?

And if the application for brush knee twist step were really the same as what Cung Le is showing, why not practice it that way in the form?

I won't address Cung Le's technique per se, because I think that's actually tangential to the question you're asking. To answer, it depends on what you're looking at. George Xu once (or possibly many times, for all I know) said that the movements in form are not precisely anything, but are precisely almost any number of things. The idea is that you go to a certain point and no further because you're practicing a particular shenfa or coordination, and how that coordination manifests will be slightly different depending on the situation. It's a way of learning that is meant to engender spontaneity rather than an "if A then B" type of approach.

If you look at Chen style, you can compare something like Lao Jia, which is more or less the standard village style, to something like Hong Junshen's Practical Method (Chen Zhonghua has videos you can see on youtube). Hong altered the form (with the approval of Chen Fake) to make it look more like the applications he was shown. So you're not the first to ask that question. In my mind, it's more a question of pedagogical approach, and in my experience it's an approach very few people really understand. So the short changing, if there is any, comes not from the fact that people are learning the wrong applications so much as that people don't understand what it is they're really training with form work and why.

Again looking at Chen style, there are many movements in the form that are extremely similar. To me it's not so much that they're totally different (as many people would argue-- look at the "is it diagonal flying or part horse's mane" debate in the video section) as it is that they're variations on the same principle. Equally as important as the variations on the principle, however, are the transitions from one movement to the next within the form. Relative to form work, I think the real benefit of doing the form (and not just single move practice) comes in the transitions-- one of the characteristics that separates taiji from other arts in my experience is not so much the techniques themselves as how those techniques are arrived at.

[Dmitri]

the movements in form are not precisely anything, but are precisely almost any number of things. The idea is that you go to a certain point and no further because you're practicing a particular shenfa or coordination, and how that coordination manifests will be slightly different depending on the situation. It's a way of learning that is meant to engender spontaneity rather than an "if A then B" type of approach.

+1, couldn't have said it better.
Taiji form (unlike just about any other art's form that I can think of, except maybe I Liq Chuan's) is NOT (or should not be) a "collection of techniques", -- in my understanding of it anyway, most people's mileage seems to vary on this.

[D_Glenn]

Taiji is more about the legs then the arms so if you only look at the hands and try to find applications that look similar it's not really taiji. There are applications that have you so twisted and in pain that you want to fall to the ground to get away, what makes the app work is typically the front knee- where it's placed and how it presses and controls, take the leg away and the app doesn't work- or you'd have to use 'Li' to make it work. You could say the form is more for training the legs and if you don't know how the legs work in application you're never going to pull or see true applications from the forms.

Maybe another problem is doing the form slow there isn't hand/foot harmony so visualizing the applications isn't there, you can start to get the hands and foot working together with fixed-step push-hands, but to really start to see applications in the form you'd probably want to do it at it's normal speed where you have hand and foot harmony- or as CXW would call it doing it at "running speed" as you learn to 'walk' before you learn to 'run'.

-my 2c

.

[Chris McKinley]

Nah, I think there are only 108 moves in Taijiquan, they have to be performed exactly as is in a fight or they are not the real art, and if you find yourself in a situation that calls for any variation on those exact 108 moves, it's your own fault because you are not fighting in the proper manner and you should have trained harder.

[RobP2]

+1, couldn't have said it better.
Taiji form (unlike just about any other art's form that I can think of, except maybe I Liq Chuan's) is NOT (or should not be) a "collection of techniques", -- in my understanding of it anyway, most people's mileage seems to vary on this.

I had teachers who said that, but then every form move had to be so precise, move the hand half an inch here and there, adjust this and that, so the question then is if the form postures aren't techniques, why so much precision?

cheers

Rob

[Kurt Robbins]

Apart from Shui Jiao which is active and opponent oriented I don't see straight forward applications from forms.
Could be alot of different reasons for this - don't really care to debate the why not's.
Forms seem to be a dynamic memory system that is heavily influenced upon the teacher and student (*how much depth the teacher and how good the students memory).

* Plus new combat situations demand for change and open interpretation.

[Wanderingdragon]

The turn of a wrist could be the difference between weak or strong, structure is important.

[yusuf]

lets say i do a figure eight motion solo training... what application is that?.. or what qualities is that helping develop?

[Chris McKinley]

The idea of absolute precision being based on a very delicate threshold for strength or weakness does not hold up to common sense scrutiny. If:

A) 'The precision threshold for acceptable structural strength is so narrow that an inch either direction compromise's the structure's integrity and renders it insufficient for combat purposes', and since we already know that the following is independently true...

B) 'The nature of real combat is so complex and chaotic that it proscribes any possible chance of being able to 1) recognize the exact opportunity to apply a given precise structure, 2) recognize such opportunity in time to actually apply such structure, nevermind 3) be able to configure oneself with the same structural precision as such posture requires', then....

C) The notion that 'the art of Taijiquan is such that each posture is intended to be used flexibly in a variety of possible tactical applications' is not logically possible, since to deviate even an inch from the precise choreography would represent an unacceptable level of structural compromise, therefore......

Either A or C is true. Both cannot be true simultaneously. Further, if A is true, then due to B being independently and unquestionably true, it must be true that the art of Taijiquan is completely useless for any realistic combat whatsoever. Since we operate out of the assumption that such a condition for the art of Taijiquan (being useless for real combat) is not the case, the evidence strongly favors that C is true instead of A, since we know that if C is true, the art of Taijiquan can still be viable for real combat situations even with B being true.

[johnwang]

Chinese saying said, "手腳交待清楚 Shou Jiao Jiao Dai Qing Chu - your hands and legs movement have to be in a great detail." In the striking art, your feet position may not be that important. As long as you can punch at your opponent's head, whether you land your front foot on the right side or on the left side of your opponent's front leg won't make that much different. In the throwing art, your front foot position determines whether your back leg can function effective or not. If your front foot land just just 1 inches short, your back leg may not be able to reach to your opponent's leg as you intend to.

[Chris McKinley]

John,

While that would seem true, it still doesn't address the logical contradiction I brought up.

[johnwang]

John,

While that would seem true, it still doesn't address the logical contradiction I brought up.

In any boxing match, more than 60% of their punches are not be able to hit target just because the distance. Hitting in the thin air is easy but trying to hit on a moving target will require some "footwork". The question is, if you don't train your footwork in from training then when will you train your footwork?

You have to allow a reasonable "tolerance range". The smaller that range you have, the better successful rate that you'll have. If you look at the following clip, you can see that whether you should "step in your front foot only" or "step in your back foot and then step in your front foot" depends on the distance between you and your opponent. If you don't have a "imaginary opponent" in mind and assume where his position is then you won't be able to know which footwork that you should train in your form. Also most of the form design does not include the "run down" momentum drill. If you don't train you "run down ability" along with your form, you may not be able to build your correct "body structure" to execute in combat.

http://johnswang.com/shoulder_strike.wmv

I like the Baiji approach that in the beginner level, they train static footwork Fajin. In the advance level, they train the dynamic Fajin (Fajin along with the run down footwort).