Long Forms vs Short Forms – What Should You Start to Learn?

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Form, Form practice, Jibengong, Tai Chi form

Should you learn a shorter or a longer Tai Chi form? What is best to start with? Longer forms can be 88, 108 or 120 movements or even longer, depending on how you count the individual movements. Cheng Man Ching’s form is 37 movements long and the modern short Yang or “Beijing form” is merely 24 movements long.  

So what is best to start with? A long Tai Chi form or a shorter one? Some schools have a strict curriculum on how things should be taught and in what order. Some schools only teach one form. To make a statement on this topic might be viewed as dismissing some schools. But I think it’s more about what you want to learn, what kind of focus you have in your practice. But on the other hand, if you ask this question or is interested in my answer, you might not yet know what you should, or even can, focus on.

Whatever you can find is better might be a proper answer. Or maybe it’s just better to find a good teacher regardless what you are taught. However, in my own classes and as a teacher, I have struggled to find a good way to teach Tai Chi. All of my teachers taught in very different ways, and I know yet others who teaches Tai Chi differently. There’s no simple answer to this question.

I’ve tested different ways. The first times I taught a class, I started with the long Yang (Yang Cheng Fu) Tai Chi Form. Years later when I started a new class I tested teaching a short yang form first, and then moved on to teaching the long Sun style Tai Chi form.  I know that many teachers prefer to teach a short form first. For Yang style, it’s either the 24 or 10 movements forms. Then later they go on teaching a long form, so I thought that I should try this myself.

The idea is that the student could find it somewhat rewarding to actually finish something within the first six few months instead of spending two or three years learning one single form. But I wasn’t satisfied with this method. Not at all. I found it repetitive and a waste of time. If you want to teach a form, start with the long form first. This is my own recommendation.

But the issue is not if a form should be short or long. Length has nothing to do with the qualities learned in Tai Chi Chuan. Over the years, I haven’t been very satisfied over the way I taught and not how I structured a curriculum. But it hasn’t much to do with what form to teach or when. The main idea to focus on as a teacher should not be about teaching your students to remember movements. It should be about body method. How to teach body method and body movement, is the really tricky part.

In later years, even though I hardly teach nowadays, I have stopped teaching forms, longer and shorter. Maybe when a student has gained some level of understanding of body movement I might teach one. My own method focuses on Jibengong, or foundation exercises, as well as single movements and short drills. And then there are plenty of partner work as applications and push hands.

So to answer about what is best to start with, a longer or shorter form? I guess that my point is that it doesn’t matter very much. It’s your own understanding of how to move and how to understand basic principles that matter. You see, a Tai Chi shenfa, or  Tai Chi body method, isn’t something that comes naturally by learning movements. You need a teacher that can teach you body movement, and teach you how you practice a certain quality of body movement. Building up a body method, or shenfa, takes a whole lot of time. Focusing on the right things and not wasting time on superficial things is important. Form is not superficial, that is not what I mean. Form practice is important and helps you to deepen your understanding. But in my own opinion you need that basic understanding first and you need to practice in a way so that you build up your body method in a certain way.

Another thing about form practice, and Tai Chi in general, is that I don’t always agree with how principles are usually taught and understood. I do believe that rules are mostly taught too dogmatic in Tai Chi, too strict, and often the teacher misses the point about what is important or not. Forms often becomes very strict and the students learns rules, and to prohibit the body from “wrong” type of movement, instead of nurturing a type of body that has freedom, and with freedom of movement.

With my own methods, focusing on what I do and teaching my Tai Chi body method, I can focus my exercises on body awareness and teach a student how to feel and understand what the body wants. I want the practitioner understand a certain precision of movement, but at the some time nurture freedom of movement, spontaneity and creativity. This is what I consider the “correct” way to teach and learn Tai Chi, regardless if a practitioner trains through stances, drills or forms. Mindless repetition of movements is the very last thing I would want my students to spend their time on.

Why Long Forms in Chinese Martial Arts and in Tai Chi Chuan?

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Chinese Martial Arts, Daolu, Tai Chi form

Long forms in Chinese Martial Arts is an interesting topic. In my own (maybe not so) humble opinion, forms are overrated. But also very underrated. Like everything else in this world, they are usually taught and practiced for wrong reasons. In Taijiquan, most of a practitioners time goes to practice a form. Why has it become so?

Chinese forms are called Daolu (套路), a “road set” or “walking a road”, sometimes just called Dao (套), a “set”. They consists of movements strung together in sequences. Some schools have many different forms, other arts have only one.

Some Chinese styles have developed what could be seen as an extreme amount of forms, both barehanded and weapons, as Choy Li Fut and Hung Gar. In Choy Li Fut, I  have absolutely no clue how they can have other time for practice than remembering all forms. Hung Gar is a bit better. Originally, this art was jus one form, the Iron Thread (or Iron Wire form), and later more and more forms was added to shape a ladder of progress, starting from purely external training, to put more and more emphasis on internal aspects.

In earlier times, there were probably no set form in Tai Ci Chuan, but only stances, single movements and short drills that the practitioner would put together himself, string together, to a personal form. This is probably the reason for the old name of Tai Chi, “Mianquan”. It’s often translated to “cotton fist/boxing”, but actually, another meaning of mian is “continuous”, like if you try to pull cotton apart, it will stick together. So this means movements put together without visible seams. You can read more about this way of practice here in Chen Weiming’s book “TAIJI BOXING ACCORDING TO SHI DIAOMEI”.

The main reason, and the most important aspect is to have a long form as a pedagogical tool, is like having a coat hanger, a rack or a locker to keep your clothes in. It’s a way to organise knowledge in a way so you will remember all sorts of techniques and different methods. You’ll keep everything you know there, organised and easy to look through. In your form, or forms, you should be able to find everything you learn in your art. It’s like a dense catalogue, or a list, of all your punches, kicks, throws, take-downs, qinna, etc.

A Tai Chi form is usually put together so you can learn step by step one category of methods after another. If you look at all traditional Taiji forms, they start of rather stationary. In the beginning of the form, you don’t walk very much, it’s quite stationary.

So when you learn the first movements in the form, you will usually be introduced to basic balance breaking methods, as well as ways to parry and block. In the end of the first part pf the traditional Yang form, you will be introduced to more strikes and punches. The second part of the form starts of with throwing and anti-grappling methods, and then kicks. In the third part, even more footwork and more kicks are introduced, as well as more advanced types of qinna/joint locking techniques etc.

The long traditional Yang Tai Chi forms, regardless school or lineage, are all constructed the same way. Basic methods are taught first and the footwork is simple. And later in the form, you can find more advanced techniques as well as more advanced footwork.

The message is very clear. First learn to maintain your own balance and structure. When you have found your own balance and know how to maintain it, you can start to move around more and do more. Basics first, advanced methods later.

For the practice itself, the structure of the form will help you to warm up the system before doing any kicks or sometimes jumps. With a traditional long form, you won’t need any additional warm up. Though it’s good to do some standing wuji meditation before starting to practice the Tai Chi form.

Personally, I don’t believe in shorter forms other than a supplementary practice. The actual length of a long form is important. Even though there are repetitions, you need a certain amount of changes and variations to learn how to really change between movements.

It might seem that the length is of less importance for Tai Chi as health practice only, but I believe that the length is crucial here as well. You need some time to really warm up the system. 20 minutes of practice is for repetition only, to keep up want you know. But to develop in your practice, you need more than that. When you practice Tai Chi, you should build up a certain heat within the body. This is first about an internal warm up of the body that cannot be achieved with external additional war, up. You should feel warm, the breath should gain freedom and your whole body should feel liveliness.

There’s a process here that takes time for the body to reach its full potential. And it’s when you have reached this stage your real practice start. After a good 40 minutes of Tai Chi form practice or so, your body should feel just as good and comfortable as if you’ve had a session of traditional massage. If you just rush through a shorter version, as the 24 variant. just for the sake of doing it, you just won’t get the same deep impact from your Tai Chi practice.

And then there are different types of forms even in Tai Chi. Some Chen schools have four or five different bare-handed forms. Yang style lineages only have up to ten different forms, slow, fast, small frame etc. And then there are the weapon forms. But still, one long form is mostly regarded as the core of the system.

But in my own opinion, people put too much emphasis on forms practice, not only in Tai Chi Chuan, but in Chinese Martial Arts in general. People should spend more time finding partners to do partner exercises and schools should focus more on this as well. The problem is that people regard forms as something magic. “Do forms and you will learn to fight eventually, without even practicing fighting.” This is the main problem with Chinese Martial Arts. In my own humble opinion of course.

Here, if you want to watch, is a video with some more thoughts regarding forms in Chinese Martial Arts. I highly recommend to take a look at the channel as well, where you can watch many different interviews and demonstrations of different styles, with internal arts as its main focus:

Why There’s No Continuous Movement Without Engagement From The Core

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Body awareness, Form, Form practice, Tai Chi form, Whole body movement

Would it seem contradictory if I told you that Chen stylists are often better than Yang stylists on keeping an unbroken continous movement while performing their form? It probably would if you think about the suddenly outbursts of fast movements and stop-and-go actions in Chen forms. Shouldn’t Yang or Wu stylists be better when as many of them claim that the essence of Tai Chi is continuous unbroken movement, just as the classics state? Why then do I see so many practitioners and even long-time teachers stop or sometimes even stop and then speed-up in a transition from one posture to another? In my own view, as long as you don’t deal with dingshi, the form should be seemless, with no end or beginning of a posture shown visibly. Yet, I will stand firm in my statement that Chen stylists are often better on this.

Why? Because Yang stylists are sometimes not very good at initiating movement from the feet and from the core. Where I personally believe that Chen style has an advantage, is about initiating movement from the core, through Dantian practice and silk reeling exercises in the very beginning of their Tai Chi study. Often when you see that Yang and Wu stylists stop and go, this is a clue that tells us that there is no internal movement. The hand stops because the body doesn’t move. While Chen stylists keep their body moving through continuous coiling and rotating core action, many people from other styles move to a posture, stops and move again because they don’t keep the core active the same way. I would suggest that you, regardless style pay more attention on continuous internal movement than just do a transition from here to there. When performing your form, movement should not stop in the feet or legs, and the spine should keep on moving, coiling, rotating through waist and continuous open/close movement, coordinated directly with the feet and hands.

If you do like this, your form will gain spirit and an organic feeling of whole body movement. The whole body needs to come alive. Yet I see people who seem to be trapped in their bodies. Sometimes they move as big solid chunks where movement seems to be stuck, sometimes parts of their bodies never moves. And all of this keep being habits through the years without changing. Tai Chi Chuan should release your body, not trap it. Freedom of movement begins from awareness and movement on the inside.

Suggested related post on internal awareness

Taiji Ba Jin – A guide to The Eight Jins or “Energies” in T’ai Chi Ch’uan

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Ba fa, ba jin, eight jins, Lu, Peng, Pengjin, Tai Chi

Jin or jing, this Chinese character can be pronounced and romanized in both ways. People often translate it into “energy”. But “energy” is still not exactly what was originally meant. The eight Jins in T’ai Chi, “Ba fa” or “Ba jin” are the eight basic ways you can use the body. The term Jin has the connotation of a skill, something that is learned and developed through proper practice.

The “Eight Energies” are also called the “8 Gates”, or “Ba Men” in Chinese. Together with the 5 steps, they make up the 13 postures or principles. I have described the Tai Chi 5 steps in this post. Here, we will only consider the 8 jins.

The “8 energies” are considered as eight basic techniques, but in fact they are something that should be described much more as body skills than as techniques. The names for the eight jins are: 掤 peng, 捋 lu, 挤 ji, 按 an, 採 cai, 挒 lie, 肘 zhou, 靠 kao.

A Jin in Tai Chi can mean two different things (at least)

When people speak about these Jins they can mean either a technique, a movement in the form, or they can mean a basic body skill that has the same name. In fact the movements in the T’ai chi form which has the name of the Jin only resembles one example of how the Jin can be used. And also, every movement in a T’ai chi form belong to one of these jins. In Chinese calligraphy, there are eight basic strokes that make up all of the chinese characters. In T’ai Chi, the eight jins make up all of the movements in the form.

Confusion about the definitions of the terms

In the T’ai chi world, there is indeed a confusion about the definitions of the jins. Some things are described differently according to style,  school and lineage. Most of the confusion has to do with not being able to separating the body skill from the individual examples in the T’ai chi form or with trying to translate the meaning according to the names. Everyone says that he or she is correct and everyone else is wrong. And so do I. You can listen to whom ever you like. But my advice is to have in mind that any complete system needs its own logic. If there is any kind of contradiction or something that doesn’t make sense, or some detail that seems off or misplaced, there is mostly some kind of mistake or flaw that can make the whole system fall flat. What I will try to do is to explain the jins in a detailed yet cohesive manner and in a way that all of the different parts hold together as a solid system. The way I will try to explain the jins is also somewhat different from how many others will explain it.

Eight different aspects of open and close

Why must the explanation be different? Well, what you should understand is that most of the T’ai chi body methods that are taught today are great simplifications of what so called indoor students or disciples are taught. If the eight jins resemble eight different body methods, then how “common” students will understand the concept of a Jin will differ from an advanced indoor student.

Anyway, there’s a common saying in tai chi that “Kai/He should be in every movement.” My first Yang style teacher tried to teach me this in my very first year. Later I encountered it from various teachers. They had a different take on the principle, but they all emphasized it as an important part of tai chi and form practice especially. What exactly does “Kai he should be in every movement” mean? Kai is usually translated as open, he is mostly translated to “close”. A general more simple explanation is that Kai and he is the movement of the body as whole body should work like a belch achieve circulation however you want to explain this. Traditionally it is said that these movements help you to pump up the Qi and use these movements to circulate it through out the body. If you want to use the old Chinese term “qi” or not, it is still true that “Kai He” type of movements will help you to build up a certain heat inside of the body. But “open and close” is not a complete translation or anyway near satisfactory explanation of this term. The common word for close or closing in Chinese is not “he” but “guan”. The real meaning of “he” is not really to close something, but to “connect”. The character for he looks like a house. In Tai Chi it has a similar meaning because every movement is a certain formation of the body, a body structure.

“To connect” in tai chi means that the angles of the body is as strong as possible so the body structure is as strong as possible. The structure demands certain angles as well as support from a strong base. The “he” or “close” means to connect the structure from the foot through the legs, gua, back and spine, shoulder blades, arms, right out to the fingertips. Kai means to “open” as in open up the structure. Another word that was used earlier together with “he” is zhan or stretch. Kai or zhan means that you need to open up the joints before connecting. “Kai” is straightening the spine, “he” is to fold it slightly, or to “ba bei han xiong”, one of the ten fundamental principles according to Yang Cheng Fu, or to “pluck back and hollow chest”.  “He” is to tuck in the tailbone, “Kai is to release, straighten it or untuck it. In the open-close principle, the whole body should, as I said earlier, work as a belch, the whole body constantly contracts and expand, from the legs through the whole spine. The arms help to balance and connect the whole structure. From a neidan perspective or from the POV of circulating qi, “Kai” is like turning on a water tap, and “he” is connecting the hose. Then you can control direction and strength of the water flow. This is similar for tai chi. You must first open up the structure before connecting it. When you connect it you have circulation.

In Tai Chi, as I already have stated, “Kai/He’ should be present in every movement. But how often do you hear an explanation how “Kai/He” is used for ba jin/ 8 “energies”? If you have already read a whole lot of texts about Tai Chi you will know that the answer is never. Absolutely no one explain this.

All of the 8 jins or energies are aspects of either Kai or He body movements. As techniques, they are eight different ways to use either open or close aspects for combat. What is the point of arranging techniques or fighting methods in either Kai or he? This has nothing to do with theory or philosophy. In fact, there’s a very commonsensical practicality behind this construction. If you consider each and one of the eight jins as either an open or close aspect, you can understand that they function very clever together. One of the eight jin is used to store energy for another jin. When you pull or twist your body, the next movement will flow easy and natural into the other. If you consider the jins as different aspects of certain body movement as you use them in real situations, the energies will flow into each other continuously without gaps or breaks. Your movements will become lively, you will move smooth and find it easy to change swiftly between movements.

The four main directional movements

The jins are considered first and secondary movements. The first four are the most important and three of them belong to “close”, or ”he” aspects. The four secondary, or corner movements have three “open” or “kai” type of movements.

Peng – “ward off”

Peng is often called ward-off and Pengjin ward-off energy. As a quality, energy or jin, Peng is a consequence of achieving a very relaxed and balanced Tai Chi body. Peng is what naturally hold up the structure. As a technique or a movement, there should be no resistance. An offensive attack, a push or strike, happens in the change from another movement, as lü, into peng. You can store movement or energy with lü and release it with peng. Adding this principle for any kind of attack enhances the power released.

Lü – “Roll Back”

Lü belongs to “open” movements or “Kai”. It is used mostly in defensive movements. to evade, parry, It’s like opening up a door as someone tries to run into it. When people quote the famous saying “to lead into emptiness,” they mostly think about lu. The centerline of the body acts as the middle of a wheel. The body turns around it. The attacking part of the opponent attaches to you as that point was the outer part of the wheel.

Ji – “press”

Ji or “press” is a force coming straight out from the center of the body. In the form, the common movement that is labelled ji has one hand supported by the other, often seen as an attack with the wrist of the back. But the visual appearance of the most common versions is a bit deceiving. You can use one single hand and you can use any part of the hand to strike with. A straight lead/a straight jab belong to ji types of attacks.

An – “Push” or “push down”

An means push and is often translated as “push down”. Some people says that an is the two hand push, others say that an is the downward movement after the push, or that the push begins upwards and then continue downwards. If you look at different videos and clips on YouTube, you will see that this jin has a various explanations. I have already stated that I believe that each jin is in fact a different way of body use. I don’t believe that any one of them has to do with directions except in the form as examples. It is possible that this jin has got it’s name from a certain downwards movement in the form. I appreciate the explanation of relaxing downwards, and there is indeed truth to that it’s function has to do with relaxing into the movement. But the jin itself is not a direction. An is using a close, or he, movement with both hands together as you move your spine and back as in a basic han xiong ba bei manner, or raise back hollow chest. An is using this movement to attack with. It can be done forwards, upwards or down. It’s the movement of the trunk that determines if it’s an or not.

The 4 corner movements

Lie – “Split”

If lü is the opposite of peng, than Lie, or split is the opposite to an. An represents using a complete close posture and lie means to open up the body. It’s Kai, or open, using both arms. The common appreciation of the name is that splitting means to do two things at the same time, as pulling two limbs in different directions. But in my opinion, the name is not derived from any the application, but instead it represents the feeling of the movement, like tearing a book apart. In the form, the “single whip” posture and “separate horse’s mane” are both wide, kai movements and thus they represent lie.

Cai – “pluck”

Cai is called a downwards grab or jerk and this is how most of people appreciate the movement, like a sudden grab or like jerking of an apple from a tree. If this were true, then why would it be called a jin? A jerk is not a skill that needs to be practiced to developed. In fact, cai is a “Kai” type of movement that is mostly used after that an arm is deflected away with lü. Cai is a very small, subtle and completely effortless move that is aimed so to abruptly lead off his balance. He will not hardly feel your cai, but the downward movement will make him feel as he drops suddenly into a gap or a whole. This is the most common traditional use of cai, but it can also be used together with a hooking movement to pull the opponent towards the Tai Chi practitioner. As cai is a single side Kai, or ”open” type of movement, it is popular to use in conjunction with ji, to store jin in order to use it for a strike.

“Cai is where our opponent loses control of his centre of gravity, and we use a technique to disrupt his balance to such an extent that he is uprooted completely from his position. It is something like a strategically placed lever lifting a heavy rock.”
– Principles of the 13 Tactics

Zhou – “Elbow”

Zhou means elbow. Zhou is mostly using the elbow or upper arm. But the technique or use does not mean any kind of elbow attack. In fact, Zhou is an aspect of Kai. The arm and elbow strikes as it is stretched into the opponent.

Kao – “Lean”

Kao is often translated into English as shoulder or shoulder stroke. But the meaning is to lean. In Chinese, if I say that I “kao” you, it means that I lean against you or that I position myself really close to you. Kao is to use the shoulder or the side of the body, to unbalance or strike the opponent. Kao is mostly considered to be an aspect of close, or “he”.

When Should You Start To Learn Push Hands?

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Applications in Tai Chi, Form, Progress, Push hands, Tai Chi

A common question from beginners and non-practitioners especially who are interested to start studying T’ai Chi Ch’uan, is about when they can start to learn push hands.

There is a common view that form should be practiced first and push hands later. Many teachers, even some established and well known, will teach form and basic exercises for the first one or two years, and then go on to start teaching push hands. Applications and combat practice will be initiated even later.

Some people say that you need to practice form first to be able to understand push hands. I don’t agree with this conception. Form practice is not a prerequisite for push hands. In my opinion, the truth is quite the opposite around. Push hands is a tool for learning how to practice the form correctly, especially in terms of balance, alignment and intent. Form should be taught together with, and alongside, push hands and applications. Otherwise your form practice will be just as good as walking around with an empty bag. Later you’ll probably need to re-learn how to do your form… if you haven’t already cemented a false appreciation of the form and still are able to change it…

But practicing push hands, and applications especially, early when you have started to train, doesn’t mean that you should do it in a purely ”technical” or ”external” manner, as you commonly see in Karate or Jujutsu. No, on the contrary, you should do this using tai chi principles and practice this to learn and understand Tai Chi principles. My own teachers paid a great attention to details right from the beginning. When we did simple applications and “leading & following” exercises, my first teacher would show me how to stand correctly, how to relax properly, how to sink into the stance and how to use my waist. He would to tell me how to breath correctly or not to hold my breath. And he would constantly repeat “relax, relax, relax”. Tai Chi principles were taught and drilled right from the start, practically. The first thing my first Tai Chi teacher did on my very first class was not about showing a form or any kind of solo exercises. No, instead he taught some simple evasion and guiding exercises, as well as balancing and unbalancing. These few exercises set the course for the whole progress in my Tai Chi practice. For the years to come, form, push hands and applications were always fully integrated. I learned balance, rooting & structure more from the latter two parts of the practice and I would continue to study what I’ve been taught in class when I practiced form home alone.

In my own opinion, this is the correct way to teach form, push hands and applications. For push hands, I believe that the basic simple drill also could be taught from the start. But the progress from drills to free push hands exercises should be achieved by a gradual process. In my own opinion, free push hands is always better as a semi-cooperative game where you help each other solve problems and come up with solutions. Free combat practice and sparring should is in my opinion better learned from other formats of practice.