Yang Style 37 Form Tai Chi (Including Push Hands)

Author: Zhao Youbin
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-04-01
Features: The Yang-style 37-form Tai Chi Chuan was conceived and created in the spring of 1997. Tai Chi Chuan is a precious martial arts cultural heritage of China, known for its rich dialectical thinking, unique health benefits, and elegant human movement. It has been widely recognized and promoted in society. Yang-style Tai Chi Chuan is one of the outstanding forms among the various Tai Chi Chuan schools. Its founder was Yang Luchan, with a history of nearly two thousand years. His sons, Yang Banhou and Yang Jianhou, and his grandsons, Yang Shaohou and Yang Chengfu, as successive masters, made epoch-making contributions to the status and development of Tai Chi Chuan in Chinese martial arts. Especially Yang Chengfu, the master, who combined the experience of three generations of ancestors, developed the 85-form Tai Chi Chuan, which has become a model for contemporary and future generations to inherit the Yang-style Tai Chi Chuan. Its characteristics and styles are clear techniques, regular movements, uniform speed, smooth and continuous, distinct between solid and empty, soft and flexible, demonstrating elegance in gentleness and a sense of grandeur in tranquility. Therefore, combined with its ease of learning, Yang-style Tai Chi Chuan has become a form suitable for all ages and the most widely practiced Tai Chi Chuan in China. The 37-form Tai Chi Chuan we will introduce is a combination of non-repeating movements from the traditional 85-form Tai Chi Chuan, arranged in order. The purpose of simplification and revision is: 1) Shorter duration, with faster performances taking about four minutes and slower ones about eight minutes, making it easier to master the basic skills of Yang-style Tai Chi Chuan in a short time and laying a foundation for further learning of the 85-form Tai Chi Chuan; 2) It can serve as a performance and competition routine for Yang-style Tai Chi Chuan. The features of this routine are: A) Its performance characteristics and styles are consistent with the traditional routine; B) The requirements and principles of the movements are the same as those of the traditional routine; 3) Movements are compact, content is focused, arrangement is smooth, and layout is reasonable, summarizing the movements of the traditional routine while aligning with national competition requirements. "The charm is endless, like willows swaying in the spring breeze; when practiced gently and beautifully, it flows like clouds and water." This is a poem on Tai Chi Chuan composed by the renowned Yang-style Tai Chi master, Zhao Youbin. Indeed, Tai Chi Chuan is beautiful. Its routines may appear simple, but they contain elegance in nature, like a flowing landscape painting or a lyrical poem, known as "living sculptures" and "flowing music." Practitioners of Tai Chi Chuan can reach a state of tranquility and joy, enjoying health through beautiful movement—this is the unique charm of Tai Chi Chuan. Yang-style Tai Chi Chuan, with its many advantages, has been accepted by more enthusiasts and has become one of the most widely spread styles domestically and internationally. To achieve good fitness effects and a higher level of performance, in addition to mastering the Tai Chi Chuan routine, one must also work on the principles of Tai Chi Chuan. In summary, the key principles are: 1) Hollow and spiritual top advancement, where the head is upright and the spirit is radiant, with a natural sense of emptiness without force, allowing the spirit to be lifted; 2) Containing the chest and lifting the back, where the chest is like a straight arrow and the back like a bow, relaxing the chest and back muscles, and with a straight body, the Qi naturally sinks to the Dantian; 3) Loosening the waist and tightening the buttocks, where loosening the waist gives strength to the legs and a stable lower base, while tightening the buttocks ensures a central body posture, with loose and flexible waist and hips, creating a continuous circular motion. As the boxing saying goes, "If something is not achieved, it must be sought in the waist and legs." 4) Distinguishing between solid and empty, which is the essence of Tai Chi Chuan. For example, if the rhythm of the whole body is on the right leg, the right leg is solid and the left leg is empty. At the same time, one must understand that the solid leg should contain emptiness, and the empty leg should contain solidity, allowing the body to rotate effortlessly; 5) Lowering the shoulders and dropping the elbows, where the shoulders are not raised, and the elbows are not exposed, allowing the Qi to not float upward, with relaxed and flexible arms and balanced weight. Throughout the routine, one must also achieve: 1) Coordination between upper and lower parts, continuous and unbroken, where movement is as if motionless, and stillness is as if still, coordinating hands, feet, waist, and head as a whole, and ensuring that every movement is connected without interruptions, like the endless flow of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River. 2) Achieving internal and external integration, using intention without force. Internal and external integration means that when the movement opens, the mind follows; when the movement closes, the mind follows. It requires the spirit and form to be in harmony, and using intention without force means that every joint in the body is open and relaxed, without any stiffness, where intention leads Qi, and Qi leads strength. If Qi and blood flow continuously, practiced every day, over time, one will truly gain internal strength. In conclusion, Tai Chi Chuan has many principles to master, and one must gradually understand and feel them through practice. Over time, one will naturally grasp the essence of Tai Chi Chuan, just as the great Tai Chi master Yang Chengfu once expressed the realm of Tai Chi Chuan by borrowing lines from the "Preface to the Red Cliff": "Vast and boundless, as if meeting emptiness and wanting to be empty, yet not knowing its direction; floating and ethereal, as if standing alone, transforming into a immortal and ascending to the heavens."