A few months ago, after I finished teaching myself the Double Fan Form, I was talking with my teacher about it and how hard it was for me–to a surprising degree. It wasn’t that I thought it would be easy–well, if I’m going to be completely honest, I did think it would be if not easy, then smooth-sailing.
See, I am good at weapon forms. At learning them, I mean. Learning forms in general, I’m decent at. The Sword Form was the first weapon form I learned, and it was a breeze. Seriously. It was the most natural thing I’d ever done in my life. I loved it so much, and it was all I ever wanted to do with my life.
I’m not going to go through all the other weapons I’ve learned/taught myself, but suffice it to say that except for the Saber Form (which I learned second and mistook it for being the same as the sword but just heavier. It was so very different. Once I internalized this, I was able to learn it fairly easily).
When I decided to teach myself the Double Fan Form, I thought that it would go smoothly. I had already taught myself the Fan Form and the Double Saber Form. Both were intense, but they were both doable.
The longest it had taken me to learn a weapon form/teach one to myself was three months. I thought that should be enough to teach myself the Double Fan Form. And this was after watching several videos of it. I could not find a Yang-style form, so I chose the official Chen-style version with the resolution to adapt it as need be.
Keep that in the back of your mind as I tell you why I’m talking about all the different weapon forms that I have learned/taught myiself.
As I was talking to my teacher about learning the form and how hard it was, we were also talking about the demo that her school always does every year right around the Lunar New Year. She said that she would love for me to do the Double Fan Form for this year’s demo. This was in December, I think, so just two months before the demo.
I quickly said that I would not be ready for this demo (especially as we were talking about me doing the Double Fan Form). She said maybe for next year’s demo as it was a big anniversary for her teacher. We left it at that and moved on with my private lesson.
Yesterday, she was here for my private lesson. She mentioned her teacher’s big teaching anniversary next year (50th). She said that she really would like me to do one of my weapon forms for it. I immediately realized it was not a request, and I said that I would do it. She said that she would leave which form it would be up to me. I immediately said that it would be cool to do the Double Fan Form. She agreed without hesitation, mentioning that no one else in the studio knew that form.
I want to use this post to decide which weapons form I’ll be doing. I haven’t performed in years–decades, really. I have participated lightly in a couple of the demos before (parts of the Solo Form and I once participated in the Sword Form), but that’s it. It’s quite a big deal to be asked to do a solo performance. I am my teacher’s first student, and I’ve been studying for nearly twenty years. The weapon forms are my passion, but they are not my teacher’s. She prefers the hands-only Taiji, which means that I’ve moved into teaching myself the weapon forms I want to learn.
I will admit that I’m coming in heavily biased. Obviously. But I’m going to try to put that behind me and rate the weapons fairly.
Right off, I’ll say no to the Saber Form and the Cane Form, either right or left side. Not because there is anything wrong with them, but just because they are not my favorite. That leaves the Sword Form (left or right side), the Fan Form, the Double Saber Form, or the Double Fan Form (all on the right side).
Even the Sword Form is my baby, I am reluctantly vetoing the right side because the whole school does at least part of it at most demos. That would leave the left side of the Sword Form as a choice. But, I don’t think I’d want to do something that other people are doing, even if it’s on the other side.
So we are down to the Double Saber Form and the Double Fan Form. These are two of my favorite weapon forms.
Side note: I will probably have taught myself the Bagua Knives Form by then. I am having a pretty fun time with this form, and so far, I am not running into any difficulty. Then again, I am just barely past walking the circle with the Deer Horn Knives, so who knows what maddness may erupt later? I have watched the whole video, though, and it seems to be pretty doable.
That’s what I said about the Double Fan Form, though, and that took me eight months to teach myself. Eight months. Eight months for 48 postures. Even before I hit 10, I was doubting my ability to learn the form. It was so fucking hard. The videos belied how much it would break my brain.
See, with the Double Saber Form, you’re basically doing the same thing with both sabers at one time. As I like to call it, I become a human blender. I really love spinning the blades as I become a walking Cuisinart.
With the Double Fan Form, however, you have two fans doing different things at the same time. Sometimes, it’s with one fan open and one closed. Since I watched three different videos in order to teach myself, they had their fans with different sides facing forward. One had both fans facing forward; one had one fan facing forward and one facing backward; the third video, I don’t remember. I chose to have one fan facing forward and one facing backward because it made for a more visually attractive form at more points.
Again, less than 10 postures in, and I was questioning my life choices. I was just not getting what I had to do. I had one video that had the teacher doing the form from front and back, side-by-side (while calling out each posture). I watched that one at half-speed. The second one was just from the front, and I watched that one at .75 speed. The third video, the one I included above, is a performance video, and I watched that at normal speed.
I’ll muse more about this tomorrow and make my decision then (maybe).