Taijiquan forms and style.

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Hi,

which is the best website for me to know that there are how many types of forms and style out there as I know there are a lot of commons and some uncommons 1. I would love to know the origin of each of the style too.

Thanks

[qiphlow]

most common styles i know of are: chen, yang, wu, sun, guang ping

should be easy to find info on any of these with a google or wikipedia search

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guang ping? nvr heard b4 I know there are top 5 another is wu also. I mean I wanna find the information like yang got many form also, 8, 24 88 etc.? I wanna know the move name etc.

[omarthefish]

Uh...."guang ping" is just a yang variant. Most people who teach it will simply tell you they teach "Yang Style".

The 5 standard Taiji families, the best known, the ones recognized in competition etc are:

Cheng
Yang
Wu
Wu
Sun

The two Wu's are pronounced with different tonal inflections in Chinese. One is from Wu Jianquan and the other is from Wu Yuxiang. Both are Yang derivations founded by students of Yang Luchan. Yang is obviously an outgrowth of Chen and Sun, created by Sun Lutang, has a heavy Xing Yi influence.

In recent years Zhaobao Taijiquan has been a hot topic. It is most similar to Chen but with less emphasis on Chansijin and IMO, is more carefree and even, dare I say it, "girly" looking. It comes from the Zhaobao village and there is much debate about it's origins and what particular relationship it has to the Chen style.

There's many more but those are the main ones.

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Thanks for the info, but if someone could provide a best link for information about yang style different forms or any other website to understand more about that, it will be good like what 24 form is good for begginer etc.. if possible I would also like to know more about qigong basic thingy too.

Thanks

[GLW]

If you are talking 24....there is one...created in the 1950's and derived mostly from Yang...but NOT Yang.

It is a standard routine...and amazing how so many do it so differently.

[qiphlow]

your best bet would be to find a good instructor! do a web search for "yang style tai chi" and you will find a huge amount of information. my teacher has taught me: 8, 16, 24, 40, 48 movement hand forms; long (108) hand form; 32 and "long" straight sword; 2 man hand form; broadsword; 2 man broadsword; a staff form; and a couple of fan forms; and a cane form--plus some internal choy li fut and some qigong. there are a million and one tai chi players out there, thus you will find the same number of flavors and opinions about tai chi. find yourself a teacher that you like, and stay with him (or her) until you've learned all you can.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

.... Yang is obviously an outgrowth of Chen and Sun, created by Sun Lutang, has a heavy Xing Yi influence.
.....

Please say this is a typo.

[omarthefish]

lol.

Just a missing comma is all.
... Yang is obviously an outgrowth of Chen and Sun, created by Sun Lutang, has a heavy Xing Yi influence.

What I meant to "say" was:

... Yang is obviously an outgrowth of Chen, and Sun, created by Sun Lutang, has a heavy Xing Yi influence. .


Sorry about the comedy.

[abc]

your best bet would be to find a good instructor! do a web search for "yang style tai chi" and you will find a huge amount of information. my teacher has taught me: 8, 16, 24, 40, 48 movement hand forms; long (108) hand form; 32 and "long" straight sword; 2 man hand form; broadsword; 2 man broadsword; a staff form; and a couple of fan forms; and a cane form--plus some internal choy li fut and some qigong. there are a million and one tai chi players out there, thus you will find the same number of flavors and opinions about tai chi. find yourself a teacher that you like, and stay with him (or her) until you've learned all you can.

wow, that was cool, I hope I can learn all the above thing you mention. wonder if my area can find this kind of teacher or not anyway, thanks for the reply

[B-Rad]

The mainstream Yang style has a few forms:
-The 108/103/85 posture form (Yang Cheng Fu's long form... counted different depending on who you learn from )
-67? move sword
-13? move sabre
-staff/spear

and also the Yang familly uses a couple of newly created short forms. A 13 posture form, and another 49 posture form.

http://www.yangfamilytaichi.com/ is their official website.

A couple Yang style offshoot examples:
There's Dong family taiji (Dong Yingjie was a deciple of Yang Cheng Fu) which contains a fast form or two.
And Chen Man Cheng taiji. Another student of YCF who condenced his taiji into a 37 move short form and developed some of their own stylistic traits.

A few videos:
Click here for some videos of Dong Yingjie
Click here for a video of Fu Zhongwen (another famous deciple of Yang Cheng Fu)
Click here for video of Cheng Man Ching
Click here for video of Yang Zhen Duo (Yang Cheng Fu's son)

[B-Rad]

Standardized taiji is a government system that takes elements from the various main taiji styles and combines them. Some forms were created to imrove health and teach some basic taiji to beginers, while others are competition oriented. The standardized forms I know of are:
24 form: a simplified form based on Yang style with a little Sun style influence, and some other little changes made
42 form: the newer competition form that combines techniques from the 5 major styles
48 form: an older competition form similiar to 42.
66 form: a long set combining the 5 styles
88 Yang form: a copy of the traditional Yang form with a few slight alterations
32 sword: a simplified sword form along the same idea as 24
42 sword: a newer competition sword form paired with the 42 barehand set
Also there are short competition forms for the 5 main styles... they seem to vary on how faithful they are to the traditional styles they represent depending on who you talk to...
Also I've seen a short standardized spear form and an ultra simplified short form (like... 12 moves or something ).
And a standard two person form.

http://www.taiji.de has some good examples of many of the standard forms, and I think there's a Chinese Chen style documentary on there, also.

[B-Rad]

For all the styles history, it'll probably be fastest for you to do searches through google or something (like someone said earlier). Some taiji styles off the top of my head for your search:
Yang (Yang Cheng Fu)
Chen
Wu (Wu Yu Xiang) aka Hao style
Wu (Wu Jian Quan)
Sun
Fu
Wudang (various styles suposedly from Wudang mountain)
Old Yang taiji (various "pre Yang Cheng Fu Yang" style offshoots)
Cheng Man Ching
Dong
Li
Shen
Wan Sheng
Emei (taiji from Emei mountain)
Xiao
Zhaobao
Bagua taiji
Chang

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Thanks alot for the information

[charyuop]

and also the Yang familly uses a couple of newly created short forms. A 13 posture form, and another 49 posture form.

The 13 Posture is new??? I thought the 13 Postures was the base of Taiji.

Anyway, just to make things less confused for you in case you do not know it, the 8, 24, 48, 108 forms are not indipendent one from the others. The movements you learn in the 8 will reaccur more times in the 24, in the 48 and in the 108. Just to make an example, the first movement of the 24 is made of 3 same movements which is one of the 8 form. Every form introduces few new movements, but in everyone you will find the movements from the previous forms (just in different order). Some of the movements can have a very little change, but it basically remains the same. For example in the Long form I do (it is Yang, but as people said here, they are always different) there is a movement which repeats itself called Play the Fiddle/Lute/Guitar (even names change) which is carried out almost exactly in the same way with the difference of having once the hands facing (kinda, just a rough explaination) one another one palm up and one down and in the other hands facing one another palms facing the sides. These little changes might seem nothing to the eye of someone who doesn't practice Tai Chi, but they have a different way of being used in the applications.

Every single movement in tai Chi has its meaning, even tho they might look weird and at first sight just added for the beauty of execution, every movement has its own application.
From here your question about 24 being for beginners...the 8 form is for sure the one that introduces the very basic movements. It teaches how to move your torso and shift weight, going up how to step in Tai Chi, to how to change direction keeping well rooted, to how to keep balance in low stances up to how to keep balance on one leg. So I'd say 8 is a must and 24 is the natural evolution.
(I didn't mention breathing, coz even tho it is introduced in the 8 form, it takes a long time to learn).