Just One Form

[pazman]

This month I took a break from Sanda training. Besides stuffing myself full of dumplings and liquor during Chinese New Year, I also had the opportunity to train the Yijinjing from a local master and it has re-ignited my interest in more traditional gongfu practices. I've always thought taolu useless with regards to fighting ability, and yet, I really enjoy taolu for solo practice. I think it is quite possible to traditional Chinese martial arts without taolu but then again taolu is one of the its hallmark features.

So here's my hypothetical question: If you could choose only one taolu to teach people, which would it be and why?

Karate folk can answer this question, too

My answer: The Xiaohongquan from the Shaolin curriculum. It's simple and short, yet contains a coherent set of principles that are very relevant to my current sanda practice and had a lot of relation to my aikido and judo practice when I lived in Japan.

[uki]

i train the same form everyday... it's called, "freeform"... all things change, attempting to confine practice to one set of movements goes against every principle of nature, as nature cannot be confined or contained because it is everything and anything around us... the only true constant of nature is to change.

[David Jamieson]

not a martial form but neigong is what I would keep.

[SPJ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ArhPNuYkjw

each style has its own basic skill set. that is the one form that has to be practiced everyday.

In Ba Gua, single exchange palm--

In Yang Tai Chi, grasping the sparrow's tail, cloud hand, repulse monkey etc.

In Ba Ji, the small frame 16 to 24 postures

---

[uki]

not a martial form but neigong is what I would keep.

yet all form has the martial in it... all movement has the martial in - change your intention and you'll change the form.

[cerebus]

Only one form? My Cheng Man Ching Tai Chi form. It has everything in it that I need.

[bawang]

heian shodan is best form in universe

[Shaolin]

i train the same form everyday... it's called, "freeform"... all things change, attempting to confine practice to one set of movements goes against every principle of nature, as nature cannot be confined or contained because it is everything and anything around us... the only true constant of nature is to change.

Nature does change and evolve I agree, but it still has a base, a template, a blue print from which it works from. As martial "artists", we must first learn the rules, then we can break from them and become free.

[uki]

Nature does change and evolve I agree, but it still has a base, a template, a blue print from which it works from.

a blueprint defining adaptation.

As martial "artists", we must first learn the rules, then we can break from them and become free.

i most wholeheartedly agree.

[SPJ]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYL2dsHO_wA&NR=1

a cool set of palm change 4 postures

liao, chuan, pi, chuan, dai---

we may do these back and forth (left and right) AS MANY TIMES AS WE WANT--

with various speeds, slow and slow first, and then faster

---

forward chuan, upward chuan on and on

[David Jamieson]

yet all form has the martial in it... all movement has the martial in - change your intention and you'll change the form.

nei gong has nothing martial in it.

really, it has nothing to do with it.

[kfson]

i train the same form everyday... it's called, "freeform"... all things change, attempting to confine practice to one set of movements goes against every principle of nature, as nature cannot be confined or contained because it is everything and anything around us... the only true constant of nature is to change.

I read somewhere that a Bagua practice has got to change with the weather... it took a few minutes for that to sink into my thick skull.

[uki]

nei gong has nothing martial in it.

really, it has nothing to do with it.

i think it's all in yer head man.

I read somewhere that a Bagua practice has got to change with the weather... it took a few minutes for that to sink into my thick skull.

it also changes with the surface, the terrain, the angle(like walking the circle on the side of a steep hill or something), and the intention... are you walking aggressively?? as a tiger, as fluffy-faerie-love bunny?? is your form a cross between a headless chicken and a cat chasing it's tail?? LOL... so many factors involved. mind is the path.

[David Jamieson]

i think it's all in yer head man.

one could say that about anything really.
Seeing as after your head is gone, so is everything else and before yoru head appeared, there was nothing as far as you're concerned.

so, yeah.

[uki]

there was nothing as far as you're concerned.

yet nothing comes from something...