Bao wrote:A chinese teacher I had spoke about and taught a method of holding postures when practicing a Tai Chi form. Appearantly, this method was common in earlier days. I found a text written by Wu Tu-Nan who writes about his own practice and his years studying with Wu Quan You and Yang Shao-hou. Its translated on http://www.freetao.co.uk/page620.html If you haven't read it, pls do. It's quite entertaining.
Now, my teacher taught that one should hold each posture for 6 minutes. But I have never read about this or similar methods of "Ding Shi" anywhere else. This is actually the first time I read about it.
Some questions comes into my mind. The two that bugs me are: Why doesn't "Ding Shi" seem to be part of any modern Tai Chi practice curriculum? Are there many other training methods who are either lost or kept secret?
What do you think about this?
Well, it's VERY good practice, I can assure you. You should really try playing at least a part of your form this way.
You might ask why I start this thread in The Distillery. ...
EDIT: LOL! Forgot that the disitllery was readable for all. God damn it
(Well, at least I don't need to worry about the trolls)
Bao,
DIng shi (holding posture) has alway been part of training but it tends to be haphazardly applied in modern day training. Taijizhuang (same principle i.e. holding posture but perhaps a more modern term!!!) One of my teachers mentioned this and the first person who I saw had it publicly profiled was Doc Fai Wong's book The "Secretss of Internal Taijiquan" I think that was the name and Yang Shaohou was a principal teacher who maintained this posture holding training, at least in those who referenced they studied with his line of taijiquan.
On Wu Tunan, I have never seen him do an actual taijiquan form, whether in whole, or in part and he tended to be an 'oddball' though his many statements appear to show some insight (secret, perhaps, I have no idea) but his positive spin is good to allow us to examine the depth of training and test it objectively.
I am accustomed to doing ding shi as individual posture practice as opposed to doing a form and when i reached a ding shi moment, stop, hold for X, then continue... Kind of weird..at least for me!
Many people downgrade 24 shi taijiquan but ding shi training applied to its jibengong is and can be positive.