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Double Fan Form is double hard for me

Posted on May 20, 2025 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I am still pushing forward with the Double Fan Form, and it is still kicking my ass. I wrote about it a few days ago in this post. I mean, I’ve written about it before, but that was the latest time I’ve written about it.

I was naive and a bit cocky when I started teaching myself the form. As I said in yesterday’s post, I’m used to learning forms at a fast pace. Even the Saber Form, which I did not get at all, I was at least learning the postures pretty easily–until the end of the fourth (of six) rows. That’s where there is the most difficult movement, and my teacher quit teaching the form to me at that point. In part because I got into a minor car accident and needed to take a break from it, but moreso because she did not feel comfortable with that posture/movement. She didn’t tell me that until much later.

My teacher does not like the weapons. I didn’t realize that until much later because, of course, she isn’t going to tell me that. I found out when she was teaching me the Double Saber Form. We made it roughly halfway through and then the pandemic hit (I think that’s the timeline). She sent out a video of her teacher doing the Double Saber Form. I asked if I could teach myself the rest, and she immediately said I could.

I ask her because I feel it’s respectful to her as my teacher. We are also friends, but it just feels right to me. She always says yes and is happy that I am expanding my knowledge on my own. She’s thrilled that I am getting even more into weapons, though it’s not her first love. Or her tenth, I think. I get the feeling that she only does them because her teacher insists on it. And maybe because she realized that it’s a part of the martial art(s).

I know she really respects her teacher, so it’s probably in large part because he wants her to learn the weapons. She’s talked to him about me teaching myself various weapons, and he told her that if I ever wanted to go to his classes, he would be more than happy to have me. He’s a huge weapon freak, too. And he’s very excited that I’m teaching myself the Double Fan Form.

I have to say, when I look back at my bumpy road to where I am now, I would never have dreamed that I would fall in love with the weapons like that. And after my struggles with the saber (my second weapon form learned), I was humbled.

Double Fan Form is still kicking my ass

Posted on May 17, 2025 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I am still working on the Double Fan Form, albeit very slowly. I have taught myself 18 out of 48 postures, so I’m over a third of the way through. That’s being very generous to myself, though, because I have had to go over several postures several times.

Here’s the thing.

*Looks both ways before whispering*

Most of the forms have been easy for me to learn. Long Solo Form? Fairly easy. Sword Form? Really easy. Saber Form was frustrating as fuck because I did not get it and did not like the way it felt, but it wasn’t hard to learn the postures themselves.

When I decided to learn Bagua in addition to Taiji, that was definitely a mind shift. It’s a very diffeernt martial art (much more aassertive whereas Taiji is, well, not passive, but receptive), and I had to adjust to that (not to mention different weighting of the feet. In Taiji, it’s usually 70/30 front/back. In Bagua, on the other hand, it’s 40/60 front/back. Which is a massive adjustment.

Once I got more used to it, though, I found learning the Swimming Dragon Form to be pretty smooth and intuitive. There are a few postures that messed with my mind, but for the most part, I didn’t have too much trouble learning the postures/movements.

Side note: I have to take a minute to explain that my teacher considers being taught each posture to having learned the form. She will say you’ve graduated once she teaches you the last posture. That doesn’t mean you know the form, obviously, but it’s still a good feeling.

The Fan Form was the first form I taught myself after my medical crisis. I taught it to myself in roughly thrree months, but then forgot chunks of it over time. Recently, I was teaching myself the left side when I realized that I had started fudging some of the right side. So I taught it to myself over again. I had to clear up a lot, but it’s much stronger now. I’ve been teaching myself the Double Fan Form since at least my birthday (a little before that, I think), which is a month-and-a-half ago. If I continue apace, then it’ll be four-and-a-half months total.Maybe it’ll get easier the longer I learn it; I can dream, right?

It’s completely possible, however, that it’ll get harder later on because that’s how the forms usually go. It makes sense, really. The first third or so of the form is the tutorial, to use game-speak. It’s to ease you into the form so you don’t feel overwhelmed. This is the case especially for the Solo Form. That’s the first form you learn in Taiji, and it’s the basis for all the other forms. It has three sections. The first is very basic and so gently eases you into it. Most people* can do Taiji in one way or another. My teacher was willing and eager to adapt the form to her students (concerning disabilities), which I really appreciated.