Long form vs short forms

[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.