I love taiji weapons. I probably don’t have to say that by now, but I want to make it absolutely clear. If I had the stamina to do it all day long, I would. I’ve raved about how it’s helped me through the pandemic and how I’ve pushed ahead with it at a clip that has surprised me. In comparison, doing the Solo Form is like pulling teeth with me. Even the Medium Form, which I like well enough, is not something I would choose to do if I had other options–like weapons.
We need to talk about Master T. T. Liang’s Long Form because it has been my nemesis since day one. It’s roughly 20 minutes long and is split into three sections. The third section is nearly as long as both the other sections put together and the entire form is filled with repetition. In addition, Master Liang loved the performative aspect of taiji so he made every movement an even-number of counts so the whole thing could be set to music. That means there is filler, which is strange for a medium that is predicated on exerting the least amount of energy necessary in any given situation.
I have to get into the weeds a little to explain some of the differences between the Long Form and the Medium Form so my apologies in advance if some of this is a bit abstruse. Hah. I first typed obtruse–which is my mashup of obtuse and abstruse. Anyway! In the Long Form, the bow stances–oh dear. A bow stance is when one foot is forward and pointed straight ahead. The back foot is shoulder-width apart (and usually the toes are at a forty-five degree angle NE, if front foot in north). Usually, the feet are a foot/foot-and-a-half apart front to back, but that doesn’t matter as much as the shoulder-width apart side-to-side. There can be a forward bow stance and a back bow stance, but it’s usually forward–meaning the weight is forward.
In the Long Form, the weight is 2/3rds and 1/3rd, but it can be rounded up to 70% and 30%. In the Medium Form, the weight is 100% forward, and it’s 60/40 on the back stance. The benefit of the Long Form bow stance is that you’re not exerting extraneous energy and it’s good for health reasons. The benefit to the Medium Form bow stance is that prime for martial arts applications. At least, that’s my understanding of the differences. The Long Form is considered the beginner’s form and easier to learn. The Medium Form is the advanced form and more difficult. At least this is what my teacher has told me. Her teacher wants her to teach the Long Form to the beginning classes and the Medium Form for the advanced classes. In prep for this, she has been going over the Long Form in all Zoom classes.
I’m trying to keep an open mind, but I still do not like this form at all. It used to give me crippling back pains when we did it on the regular. They would start at the end of the first section and by the third section, my back was screaming in agony. I’ve had to stop more than once during the third section because my back had clenched up so badly. In addition, my knees…oh my poor knees. I was able to clear up the latter problem with the help of my teacher looking at my knees as I demonstrated a part of the Long Form to her. She deduced that I was collapsing my knees and counseled me to make sure that my knees were over my toes. That helped tremendously with the tendonitis in my knees, but the issue of my back pains still continued.
Fast-forward to now, roughly two years after my teacher’s teacher switched from the Long Form to the Medium Form. I am now 100% back pain-free because of the stretches my teacher suggested I try. In starting the Long Form again, the pain has come back. Not nearly as intense or as often as before, but it’s there. I’ll get to that in a minute. Let’s talk about the Medium Form instead. Yes, you still have to make sure your knees are over your toes, but it’s easier when 100% of your weight is on one foot.
Let me compare going from the Long Form to the Medium Form to another switch I’ve made in my life–from QWERTY to Dvorak. Many moons ago, my brother mentioned the Dvorak typing system to me because it’s supposed to be more intuitive than QWERTY. I was intrigued because I found QWERTY so tedious. I tried out Dvorak and within a week or two, completely forgot QWERTY. I still hadn’t learned Dvorak that well and could type maybe 40 wpm. By comparison, I could type maybe 80 wpm at my highest with QWERTY. I can’t tell you how painful it was to do that transition until I was fully comfortable with Dvorak. Now, I probably type 100+ wpm and it’s much more intuitive than QWERTY.
This is the same with the Long Form versus the Medium Form. When my teacher started teaching us the Medium Form, I was salty at having to learn a whole new form, but that saltiness quickly dissipated for two reasons. One, the form is similar to the Long Form so it wasn’t learning a whole new form. Two, the Medium Form was much more intuitive to me than the Long Form. It makes sense given that I like the martial arts aspect of taiji better than the health/mental health benefits aspect, though that the latter has been a nice bonus.
Now that my teacher has brought back the Long Form and is teaching it to us again, I feel like it’s completely new. The first time we did the second section, I was sure my teacher had goofed and done the first section because there was a part in it that I completely forgot existed. She has said more than once that Master Liang loved the Long Form because it was more taiji. He called it ‘thirty minutes of heaven’ and compared it to taking a vacation. I have felt like a jerk because I *never* felt that way about the Long Form. I hated it for the first few years of taiji. Absolutely hated it. I knew I had to do it because it was the base for everything else we did, but my god I resented every second.
At some point before we stopped doing it, I begrudgingly accepted it. I didn’t hate it any longer, but I didn’t like it, either. It still hurt my back and I put up with it more than looked forward to it. I would never choose to do the Long Form and I rarely practiced it at home. Maybe the first section because it’s the most similar to the Medium Form and free from most faff. I mentioned there is so much repetition in the Long Form and it really stands out in stark relief in our return to it. One of my least-favorite movement is Cloud Hands. Most people love it and it’s the one that is shown in movies when they want to depict taiji because it’s easy to mimic (though not do correctly). It looks like you’re waving your hands in the air and I hate it. In the Medium Form, there are five cloud hands. In the Long Form, there are fifteen. You do five at a time so it’s one set of five versus three. I was so happy to cut it down by two-thirds and not at all pleased about the return of the many cloud hands. I *am* happy at being able to do more Parting the Wild Horse’s Mane and a kick that I love, but that was cut out of the Medium Form (after being modified to take out a spin permanently, sadly), but that’s about it.
I’m really trying not to hate the Long Form this time. I did ask my teacher about the back pain issue and she gave me some suggestions that have helped. It’s a matter of where my ass is pointed–it’s different in each form. To me, the nuances in the Long Form are what make it more difficult, but I’m not a master. I resent having to relearn the Long Form, I’ll freely admit, but it’s interesting to struggle with something once again. I have been whizzing through the weapons at a pace and while I’m not having difficulties with the movements of the Long Form, I am mentally pushing back against learning it again.
Here’s something telling. One of the tenets of taiji is that the teacher teaches you the right side of any form and you teach yourself the left side. I haven’t learned the whole left side of the Long Form (or any of the Medium Form) whereas I know the whole left side of the Sword Form. I was teaching myself the left side of the Long Form when my teacher’s teacher started tinkering with it. I was roughly halfway through the third section when he began changing things on the regs. I decided to put it on the backburner until he firmed up the Long Form and then shortly after, we switched to the Medium Form. At some point, I’ll have to teach myself the left side of the Medium Form, but I’m not thrilled about it. I’m also going to teach myself the left side of the Saber Form in the near future, which I’m excited about. That’s the difference between the solo forms and the weapons; I don’t expect that to change any time soon.