Long form vs short forms

[Ma_Xu_Zha]

brad said-
Then why can't someone just practice the form 12 times?

thats what they need to do to develop the gong i'm talking about.

thus back to my original post-

matt

"Based on what i have experienced through the years of taiji training i have come up to conclusions that short forms are absolutley useless for development of real gong fu. the grandmasters all practiced long forms and repeatedly practiced long forms for many decades of there training.

short forms are lacking of the complete sets and are just for stimulating the meridans for health while the longer forms begin to train the extraordinary power channels used in gong fu.

that is why i practice a few sets of long form and really feel it in my legs afterwards."


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[Brad]

Then why are short forms "retarded"? For some people it's much easier to memorize the sequence of a short form and practice it over and over rather than memorize the sequence of a long form. This way, I would think, you would be able to spend more instruction time focusing on the basics rather than trying to have a long 20-30 minute sequence of moves memorized. So isn't the length of the form less important than the amound of overall time and effort you put into it? Is one hour of practicing a long form more valuable than one hour of a short form?

[Syd]

Conversely...

If people are prepared to repeat the short forms over and over to approximate the health benefits of the original long forms, then why not just learn the long forms in the first place?

For instance, if you do the 108 and you don't have allot of time, then you can easily just perform the first or second third leaving out the last third, and guess what? You have your short form!

There is no reason to alter the original long forms because you can just perform any chosen third of the 108 and break those up into your short forms, while still preserving the original long forms intact.

I still don't get the logic of altering the long forms one bit. it was the alteration of the original long forms that various Masters were alluding to when they mentioned the watering down of Taijiquan.

Anyone who believes that the Chinese Governments standardisation of Taiji for sport and the making of Taiji easier and shorter for business reasons, don't have anything to do with the watering down of Taiji might just be a part of the problem rather than the solution.

Respectfully...

[brassmonkey]

this thread reminds me of something Snoop Dogg once said:

"forms?!?! So forms are what make me now?!? Niggaaaer I don't give a f*c* about forms"

[Syd]

And Snoops been the pinacle of philosophical anaysis of Martial Arts for quite some time...

[brassmonkey]

actually I took some "artistic" license with Snoops quote. He was actually talking about beats instead of forms.

But you missed the point. What are you learning in the form's? Or are you just collecting forms like Shaolin Do?

[Syd]

I took your point, only I objected to Snoop Dog as representative of the Tao.

Your right in suggesting that without deeper analysis and adherance to the classics and application to the fighting sets, breathing, body mechanics, qi circulation etc, etc, etc... forms are but empty vessels.

I suppose it is assumed by me when I talk about this that most people are already doing this to varying degrees, perhaps my fault here is in overestimating others. I'd rather do that than be patronizing, afterall, we're all the dearly converted here, are we not?

I feel there is a greater opportunity for internal work as well as a particular form of endurance jiben gong at work in the long forms. I think each person gets out of it what they put in. I consistently have strong Qi sensation when I perform my long forms and this often occurs on days when I haven't had time for 3 circle standing or packing qigongs.

I can only talk from my own perspective and share my own thoughts and findings. I have read many interviews with various old teachers who have not thought too highly of altered and shortened forms. If I say that breaking the long forms into 3rds and making those short forms I do not feel this to be an unreasonable suggestion. I see a wisdom in the way the forms were structured and choose to adhere, thats all.

Best, Syd

[Ma_Xu_Zha]

The purpose of the thread was to start something interesting on this board. some teacher explained that if you do a movement a 1000 times then it it yours. so basics are important. I started with short forms. before i learned short forms we did hundreds of repetitions of taiji walking forward with brush knee, part horses mane, pung lu ji an, back walking with repluse monkey and side walking with wave hands like clouds. then took a entire year to learn the 37 yang short form of cheng man ching.

over a year ago i learned a very short form call 13 wudang form. it is the 13 principle movements inherant in all taiji forms. its a good form to remind oneself of the 13 taiji principles.

here is a links from the teacher-
http://www.taiji-outfits-gifts.com/taiji_forum.html

i dont teach nor do i have interest to teach except one person who is a partner for two man taiji sets.

if i were to teach (which i dont plan to do for another 10 years) i would do something like this and actually use short forms in the beginning stages so when the long form is introduced the student can adapt more quickly.

http://www.geocities.com/Pipeline/Sh...gcomplete.html

matt

[ngokfei]

Ma/Matt

Wow, yu did alot of talking just to finally agree with what everyone was saying.

So why the contradiction? If the short forms are useless or only for retardd people then why teach them??? (or do you plan to teach retarded people) But then again you learned them !!

[Ma_Xu_Zha]

thats why i really dont teach, because people are so dumb nowadays. but i said if i were to teach, it would be a short form to build up to the long form where after learning the long form, then the short form becomes useless after the long form is completed. its kind of like training wheels.

ngokfei a question for you: for example the 38 chen style short form is neither lao jia nor xin jia but a combination of both. what a perfect way to confuse a beginner student. then another taiji master created a 18 short form thats a combination of both chen styles as well. why didnt they just make a lao jia short form?

as for contradicitions- i was searching for peoples reactions, feedback, opinions, experiences. if you read what I said i began with short forms and repeated movements but find the longer training times via a long form to help in building gong.

nobody is wrong here, nobody is perfect too.

[Vapour]

Hmmm, I just skim through the entire thread. Bit suprised that no CMC practioner made a comment.

Here is an explanation. CMC form is know as a *posture* form. It is complete because the emphasis of the form is the foundamental postures and movements in taijiquan and it is not at all concerned with technical variation of each posture s and movements. So if you think CMC form is lacking many variations of these fundamental postures and movement which you can see in long form, all I can say is that that is the whole point of CMC form. To de-emphasise the applications so one can concentrate on development of what CMC considered as the *principle* of taijiquan. You learn applications as a separate part of curriculum. And of course, push hands is a part of it. I should also mention that CMC's Taiwanese lineage has neigon as part of baish system. If you want qigong aspect, you practice that in that part. After all, CMC was master of five excellence, one of it being Chinese medicine. So I find it difficult to believe if his teaching of qigong was lacking compared to other taijiquan practioners who has not made specialised study as CMC did. I have not covered the entire curriculum of CMC yet but yes, it is a complete system if you know what each component of the system is for. It looks lacking if you see CMC system from your style's perspective.

Secondly, if you are studying a style whose main form is a long form, then any short form developed for it is merely a learning tool for the long form. I do not like 24 standard form because not only it lacks some fundamental aspect of taijiquan but it start off with repulse monkey (an advance movement) in the very beginning of the form. Having said it, it is very good form for a beginner to pick up a tajiquan choreography so it is definitely not a bad form for beginner if your school is based on Yang Long form.

I also know of a master in Singapore who, every morning, practice what is called businessmen form, an extremly short form of 5 movements (wardoff, roll back, press, push and singlewhip). He just repeat this for 40 minutes every morning. If you know jing, why complicate matter by doing many different moves. I'm quite sure that master of Chen stylist can train jing just by doing silk reeling.

If you think Long form is superior simply because long form has this or that movement, I seriously doubt you know what taijiquan is all about.

Lastly, one major advantage of CMC form is that when you entre a stage where you perform your form extremly slow to train jing, you can do entire form in less than an hour.

[ngokfei]

Ma/Matt

Your so right about the Chen Short forms.

Don't know why they did that and they don't benefit but confuse beginners.

Chen's present short forms should only be used as a bridge from learning the Lao Jia & Pao Chui to the Xin Jia adaptations of Chen Fa Ker.

I don't do Chen but have seen these sets personally.

ONly the Yang style to date has a "somewhat" progressive learning curriculum that includes short forms (10, 16, 24, 37?, 80?, 108, etc)

[Brad]

80? You must be thinking of the 85 form which is the same as 108(just counted the moves differently).

[Brad]

I tried learning a couple chen short forms(36 & 56), but they didn't turn out too well

[scholar]

Different strokes for different folks...

Myself, I don't like short forms for training. I want all the applications that my teachers want to teach me in there, and I want to practice them all, a lot. Demonstrations or competitions are another thing, though. Then a shorter form comes in handy. At my school, though, you have to learn the long form first.

From the purely technical side, the expression of the principles through many different angles found in a long form has a distinct health benefit that more limited routines don't have. This is demonstrable.

From an entirely opinionated point of view - an opinion which is intended to be provocative to my students, at least - why should a beginner waste time learning a short routine that will just be abandoned for a long one down the line? That time has to spent anyway, and there is so much information to be covered by a serious student that it doesn't make sense to me to take baby steps. Learn the long form and get it over with.

Of course, CMC style is different, they don't teach a long form, so this doesn't apply to them, I am thinking more of Ch'en, Yang and Wu family style students.

If a student just can't learn it, if it is too difficult, I tell them that maybe they have to learn something else first. My primary goal, my responsibility to my teachers, is accurate high-level transmisson of the art. Not many martial arts are so transmitted by coddling the beginning students. I know what I had to go through to learn what I know and know well. To learn what I've learned they have to do the work! If they do, I can teach them. If they don't, well, they will inevitably be passed up by people who started after them and may start to wonder why. If they simply get mad at all the hard work that is expected and quit, there are still plenty of fluffy "health only" classes that they can go and be mystical in. Good riddance.