I am going to talk about my realistic goals for 2026 once again. Here is my post from yesterday in which I blathered on and on about writing, identity, and the intersectionality thereof. Today, I want to talk about Taiji and Bagua. Why? Because why not? More seriously, because they are very important to me, and I can talk happily about them for hours on end. I try not to because no one other than my teacher would really want to hear about it.
I will mention the weapon form I’m working on because that’s understandable. I think? When appropriate, I will send one of the videos I’ve been using to teach myself so the person can see what I’m acutally doing. The response? “That looks really hard!” Which is oddly gratiying to hear. And validating. I still have three postures left to teach myself because I’ve been doing a bit of refinement. I’m feeling good about it, and I’m hoping to finish it before the end of the year. I just decided that. You would think that teaching myself three postures in a month would be a snap, but this weapon form has given me so much trouble, we shall have to wait and see.
I look back at how confident I was before I started teaching myself the form that I would be able to do so in three months. That’s the longest it’s taken me to teach myself any form, so why not? This form didn’t look that much more difficult than the others. My hubris was my downfall. Even if we take out the month I in which I was recuperating from my three shot delight, it’s still taken me seven months thus far to learn the Double Fan Form.
The thing I did not take into account was that the two fans do different things at the same time. In the other double weapon form I know (Double Saber Form), the weapons do the same thing alternately or one does a movement while the other doesn’t. I was not ready. I will admit it. I was so confident I could teach it to myself with ease. Oh, how the fates and the double fans have laughed at me. Heartily, I will add.
But! I am getting there. Slowly and painfully. I think I will feel great once I’m done. (Even though I still have much refinements to do on it.) I’m fully prepared to have to spend another month on the refinements, but I’ll be happy once I teach the final posture to myself.
Beyond that, I want to refine all my current forms. I think that’s a very possible goal. A loftier goal is to create a form. Either a Double Sword Form or a Karambit/Fan Form. I did a bit with the latter, and it was very cool. I’m not sure it followed Taiji teachings, though. I don’t mind messing around with it, but I don’t think I have enough confidence to actually come up with a form of my own.
One thing I like to do is practice the forms to music. That would be my absolute pie-in-the-sky ideal, by the way–creating a form of my own and putting it to music. I may mess around a bit with that again. It was fun, and I need a palate cleanser after teaching myself the Double Fan Form. Not because I hate it; I don’t. It’s just been so fucking hard.
There was a point roughly twelve or so postures in that made me question my very exxistence and why the fuck I was doing this. I just could not wrap my brain around the movements, and I thought I would never get it done. I was only a fourth of the way through! And a form is always easiest in the beginning, so that did not bode well for me.
Well, while that is true, there is another truism about the forms. The beginning is hard as fuck if you don’t have any basis for what you’re doing. I learned that when I tried to learn the Saber Form from my teacher after she taught me the Sword Form. The latter was so easy to learn, I mistakenly thought the latter would be the same as well. I thought, “Well, it’s just a bigger sword, right?”
Wrong. It’s not just a bigger sword. The mentality around the sword is much different than the mentality around the saber. They are used in very different ways, and I had switch the way I thought about them in order to feel comfortable with the saber. Now, I like the Saber Form fine. It’s not my favorite, but I don’t hate it the way I once did.
I really want to tighten up my forms in the next year. Most of them are fine with some slippery parts. What I mean by that is that there are places in each where I am fuzzy about the actual steps. I have talked about it with my teacher, and she says it’s common to either splice movements together or pause too long between each movement. My issue is the former because I want to get past the squidgy bits as quickly as possible. My teacher said that was common, too. People go faster when they’re trying to fudge it.
I’m going to finish the Double Fan Form by the end of the year. One movement a week is not too much to ask. Then, what’s next? Well, I’m going to teach myself the left side of the Swimming Dragon Form (Bagua). I already have taught the first ten or so movements on the left side to me because I was practicing mud stepping with the first half dozen movements or so. Then, I decided to just keep on teaching myself.
This form was fairly easy to learn. My teacher taught me the first two-thirds or so of it, but then we stopped very much near the end. Why? I’m not sure. She has demo’ed this at her school’s demo before, so I don’t think it’s the case of her not being sure of the movements. Who can say, though? I taught myself the last third or so with little problem. I have had to do a bit of tune up, but I’m fine with that.
What’s next? I really want to learn the Swimming Dragon Form with DeerHorn Knives. I love them so much, and I have since the first moment I held a pair in my hands. My teacher had a spare practice set, and she gave it to me. That was roughly a decade ago, and I did not get into Bagua until the last year or so–other than waliking the circle with hands only and with DeerHorn Knives.
That’s all for today. I will write more tomorrow.