24 Form (Yang Simplified/Beijing Form). Only place to start?

[Waterway]

Hello

There are several different Taiji teachers in my neck of the woods. As far as I know, the first form they teach is 24 Form (Yang Simplified/Beijing Form). I was told this was a good form to learn to get people a feel for the "basics" of Taiji.

I like Taiji, but I have to be honest and say I am finding the form a bit of a struggle. It just doesn't seem that interesting. I study a 13 Wu Style Dao Form too, and I find that much more interesting. So I am interested in Taiji, but not too sure about the 24 Form if that makes sense!

What do you think of the 24 Form in regards to it being THE place to start with in Taiji Did you start with the 24 Form? As it is only a fairly recent form (as is my understanding) and people were studying Taiji wayyyyy before the form was created, surely there were other methods of starting people off in Taiji?

I did a search on here for this and couldn't find anything exactly like my question, but if you know of any previous threads, please feel free to signpost me. Apologies if this a repeat BTW!! Thanks.

[Dmitri]

The choreography of a form is not what should be "interesting" in taijiquan, IMHO.

Find a good teacher (good luck with that...), form/style doesn't matter.

[chud]

I do not like the Beijing 24 form. It is supposed to be based on Yang style, but I don't think it's a good representation of Yang style at all. I would stick with the 13 Wu Style Dao form that you mentioned, or look into other short forms from Yang or Chen style (such as CZL's 18 Movement form) instead to get a better sampling of Taiji. The Beijing 24 is just a crappy form in my opinion, it feels cobbled together.

[Waterway]

I (think) I have a good teacher. The problem is the class is pretty popular. He has an assistant instructor to help, but you are still talking about a class of between 25-30 people for the 24 form class.

The Sword class has 5 people in it.

Maybe this is the problem, rather than the form itself. In the sword class, much more detail and correction happens compared to the 24 form class. Perhaps I need to find a smaller class for the empty hand form!

I am curious though, is there any other starting form people in Taiji learnt other than 24 form?

[H2O]

I am curious though, is there any other starting form people in Taiji learnt other than 24 form?

Grasping Sparrow's Tail.

[chud]

I am curious though, is there any other starting form people in Taiji learnt other than 24 form?

Not sure why you keep asking about "starting form". The starting form is whichever form you happen to learn first. For some people that is a long form such as Yang 108 or Chen's Lao Jia Yi Lu. The short forms are a little more accessible to beginners though I guess. I think CZL's 18 movement form is pretty good, but then again I'm sorta biased.

[Dmitri]

I am curious though, is there any other starting form people in Taiji learnt other than 24 form?

A great number of traditional TJQ schools not only don't start with the 24 form, but don't teach it at all.

We don't even start teaching people the (Yang long) form until after a few weeks of working with them, on the individual basis, on the basics of how to shift weight and step while maintaining proper various "taiji attributes" (head up, loose, feet flat, spine straight, no height changes, expansion inside, etc., etc., etc.) The form starts after the individual had acquired (demonstrates) sufficient understanding of the basics of the taiji movement.

Form is a choreography, if you just go through the motions, then I can see how any form (and I mean, ANY form) can eventually be a very boring endeavor. I was standing the other night before the beginning of the class repeating one transitional movement for about 15 minutes straight. Not boring at all.

[chud]

That sounds like a good approach to teaching, Dmitri.

[Dmitri]

The credit goes to my teacher of course...
I think it's an excellent approach and should be a widely-accepted practice. Instead, people just repeat and repeat and repeat the choreography for years, until they (hopefully) eventually begin to understand the basics. Well, why not start with the basics?

[johnwang]

I don't understand why we will need a 24 short form. If you just lean the 1st part of the 108 moves long form, there are 28 moves. It can be treated as a short form by itself. It starts and finishes at the same spot and face the same direction. If you train the 2nd part that's 30 moves then you have another short form. If you link both together, you have 58 moves medium size form. If you train the 3rd part, your will have 28 form, 30 form, and 50 form. You can train them individually or combine them anyway that you want.

1. 28
2. 30
3. 50
4. 28 + 30 = 58
5. 28 + 50 = 78
6. 30 + 50 = 80
7. 28 + 30 + 50 = 108

Now you will have 7 forms with different length. If you reverse those forms, you will have 7 x 2 = 14 forms. How many more forms will you need?

[Ron Panunto]

The taiji form, or style, doesn't matter. Find a teacher who knows and will teach the system's shenfa (or body method), the basic jins, and how to apply these jins in self-defense usage of the postures within the form he is teaching.

[edededed]

Exactly as John says - no need for a short form when you can just learn the first part of the long form (making it easier for you to learn the long form in the long run, anyway).

[Chanchu]

I like the 24 form but not a TCC guy at all and my 24 is bad...
but I think you can get movements to use and drill out of it, esp if you do both sides go to left repeat mirror image to the right ( I am to spastic to do that just do drills that way)

Ok I will shut up now...

[edededed]

I learned it thrice, because each taiji teacher until then required it of me! (I have since forgotten it thrice as well.)

[everything]

eh. just do the cloud hands and brush knee. maybe wild horse's mane. a long choreography is more of a mental training. it's really not particularly interesting.