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Form
Tai chi forms are fluid combat movements.
The strikes, throws and applications of tai chi have been smoothed together
into a flowing routine.
Whilst the forms are not dance, they are also not quite
fighting either.
Flow
Forms are all about flow.
Form is 'body shaped into movement'.
By removing the precision, specificity and predictability of
techniques, tai chi turned specific
moves into abstract ones.
The abstract can take many forms.
Here is
natural instinct and here is control. You are to combine the two in harmony.
If you have one to the extreme, you'll be very unscientific. If you have another
to the extreme, you become, all of a sudden, a mechanical man - no longer a
human being. So it is a successful combination of both, so therefore, it's not
pure naturalness, or unnaturalness. The ideal is unnatural naturalness, or
natural unnaturalness.
(Bruce Lee)
Habit
When an untutored body responds to real danger, it adopts an instinctive
posture
of defence.
Our school practices the form in a manner that encourages the body to stop being
afraid, re-shape habit and respond more naturally.
We pay particular attention to the biomechanics
required to produce each desired movement.
Beginner
If somebody were to attack a beginner unexpectedly,
the response would not look like tai chi.
It would most likely involve flinching,
bracing, blocking...
There would be force against force,
aggression,
panic and muscular tension.
These habits are not tai chi.
Abstract
Abstract training methods such as melee accustom students to responding whilst
controlling and shaping the nature of their response.
Good habits are combined with form.
Introductory form
The form pattern is initially learned by rote; a robotic sequence of linear
moves. The square form.
Though there is in it something of
a quite different order which cannot be attained by any progressive study of the
art.
(Eugen Herrigel)
Form development
As your skills grow, you learn how form movements can be generated using the spine, waist, joints
and weight shift.
When the biomechanics for each individual movement are physically
differentiated, you find that the limbs can only move so far using the whole
body and that the applications are defined by the range of the movement.
The form no longer look quite so crisp and clear; they have become rounded and
abstract in appearance.
Natural
If somebody were to attack you unexpectedly, your response would look like
tai chi.
After years of training, it would look casual and easy.
The line between exponent and art has blurred. Combat is not stylised.
It is not dance, or form - it is the appropriate response to the requirement of
the situation.
Function
The more closely your form follows the natural inclination of your body, the
more likely you are to use the lessons it teaches in actual
combat.
The accuracy of the form must pertain to the spatial parameters of
groundpath, the
strength of good
alignment and skilful body use.
Unnatural
You are attacked and you respond.
Later, it may be possible to consider what you did and identify
applications from the form.
Maybe not.
The dividing line between you and
tai chi is no longer clear. Your
habitual response
has been re-shaped by the tai chi.
Perhaps then you will have become naturally unnatural or
unnaturally natural.
There are also tempo
opportunities when the opponent makes conscious movement,
that is, he steps forward, makes an invitation, etc.
In such and similar cases,
the moment for attack is when he is executing the movement because until he
finishes it, he cannot change to the reverse.
(Bruce Lee)
Page
created 27 June 1994
Last updated
16 June 2023
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