I just added this video to my YouTube channel to promote the upcoming Taijiquan Immersion seminar at Kripalu, March 17-22. In it I demonstrate the Yang Cheng Fu 13 Original Postures that I learned from Master Yang Fukui, and I think this video captures the feeling I’m looking for in this particular form: big and expansive. It’s a different flavor of taijiquan than the small frame 60 movements I learned (and teach) from Grandmaster William C. C. Chen.
I have found the 60 Movements to be better for push hands and boxing skills. Master Chen’s emphasis has always been on body mechanics and application for fighting. In an earlier blog (see Yang Chengfu’s 13 Original Postures) I compared the styles of three generations of teachers in my Yang style lineage: Yang Cheng Fu (1883-1936) to Cheng Man-Ch’ing (1902-1975) to William C. C. Chen (1933-). Master Cheng encourages his students to find their own voice in their relationship to the art, just as he and the teachers before him did.
I began using the YCF13 a few years ago because it was short enough to learn in a weekend, with enough time to introduce the Three Pillars: Energetic Coherence, Central Equilibrium, and Song Kua. What makes this seminar extra special is that we have FIVE DAYS to go even deeper, without sacrificing the time to explore this really cool taijiquan form. My focus lately is on using the art to awaken dormant, underutilized, and atrophied parts of your brain and nervous system to awaken your supernormal abilities. There will be just enough explanation to provide a coherent frame of reference for all the new abilities you will learn. It’s presented in language accessible to beginners and exciting to veterans.
Even those who don’t plan to study taijiquan full out will benefit from the stuff we’ll cover. I’ll present an abbreviated version at the Society for Consciousness Studies Conference at Yale Divinity School on May 31. It is entitled, “Hemispheric Synchronization and Whole-brain Coherence in the Chinese Internal Martial Arts.”
For those who can’t make the March Kripalu seminar, I am available to teach “Taijiquan Immersion” as a weekend seminar. Contact me for details.
