The First Concept: the Importance of Repetition vs. Full-Form Practice
I started T’ai Chi the conventional Western way: first a few moves, then the first third, then more, and finally the full form – in my case, Cheng Man Ch’ing’s (Zheng Manqing) short Yang form. Except for holding postures, the formal class was all full-form.
After about 15 years of solo practice – I was a long drive from any good teacher – I started practicing the individual postures alone – 10-20 minutes on wardoff, then rollback, then wave hands in clouds, and so on.
The gains?
Five years of improvement in six months
I got five years of improvement in six months – in flow, relaxation, precision ... and Qigong, because when you repeat postures instead of always doing the full form, Qigong becomes part of the learning that is largely lost in the full form.
Learning to move like a great river
We are told to “Stand like a mountain, move like a great river.” But how do you learn to move like a great river by doing the full form? Mostly, you don’t. The full form, moving from posture to posture, is like flitting from stream to stream, never building the momentum of a great river.
Practicing individual motions does. In theory, it shouldn’t; after all, you are “breaking up” the flow by continually “re-cocking” between repetitions. In practice, it works, because you soon learn to stop re-cocking, and gracefully flow into the next repetition.
Does this really work? Yes – and it works for other motion arts:
The Skater
I asked a world-class ice skating coach how much time her students put into doing the full routine: “As we get close to competitions, nearly 100%.”
The rest of the year? “Maybe 30%. 70% of the time we devote to repetition of individual motions.”
Would the full form teach her students mastery of the motions? “No.”
The Pianist
I asked a renowned pianist how often he practiced his scales. He chuckled at that: “Every day. Otherwise I wouldn’t be invited to Carnegie Hall.”
The Dancer
From an email, from an old friend; I went into T’ai Chi, he went into ballet:
“The repeated practice merely molds the instrument, but is essential. Ballet class is segmented into barre . . . exercises to form the vessel . . . and then center . . . to utilize the effects of barre. Starting with simple barre like exercises, but without the barre, to full length combinations. Center is made up of sections. First, simple "tendus," with epolement, meaning ground level movements with proper alignment and focus. Then, turns. Pirouettes from varying angles. Small jumps to warm up the body, feet and legs. Petite allegro, or small jump and beat combinations. Finally, Grand allegro . . . big jump combinations. All of this molds the dancer, but does not create a dancer. It is about the process and learning the focus and gaining meditative one-point focus. In rehearsal, as on stage or in life, we finally must combine all of these skills in a seamless fashion.”
A motion art like swimming might seem to contradict this, since competitive swimmers spent almost their entire practice time working on the full form. But notice that in swimming, the full form is repetition; the only break in repetition comes at the end of the pool, with the turn.
The clearest example of the conflict between single-motion and full-form practice is probably the game of billiards/pool. Like a chess master seeing 30 moves ahead, a master billiards player can see many moves ahead, and still perfectly complete the current shot. This doesn’t work for beginners or intermediates; to think even one move ahead probably means bungling the current shot ... at which point there is no next shot ... or in the case of T’ai Chi, there is no learning gained today.
Repetition Cannot Completely Replace Form
There is a point to the full form, of course – many, in fact: motion flow, c’hi flow, a connection to outer ching, balance, leg coordination ... plus the nerve and muscle memory you develop in the transitions between postures. There are thousands of muscle memories you will lose if you practice individual postures alone.
This applies to dance or skating or music as much as it does to T’ai Chi. Musicians generally devote a lot of time to full pieces, but dancers or skaters sometimes neglect this, and sports coaches and psychologists have noted how their ability to execute a full form degrades as they develop a sort of “fear of finishing” – or perhaps simply forget the full form.
My personal experience: I found this true in my own practice. When I first changed my focus from the full form to individual postures some years ago, I went six full months without completing the full form a single time. The negative consequences were clear, though; by completely ignoring the full form, I was losing my flow. Soon I was starting to lose Single Whip – and T’ai Chi itself.
You cannot drop the full form ... without losing T’ai Chi Chuan itself. It is like stringing pearls. It’s easier to clean (to perfect) the pearls one at a time before stringing them – but if you don’t string them together gracefully, you’ll never have a string of pearls ... a completed work of art.
Or conversely: you might master Qigong and the truly internal by practicing the full form alone, putting in hours a day of intensive practice over decades. I can’t say, because I’m not at the level of the old masters, or even my best teachers. I will only say that Qigong alone will not teach you T’ai Chi – but Qigong and repeating motions will accelerate your T’ai Chi progress dramatically.
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PS. I’m also not alone in my focus on the internal before the full form. A friend with 40 years practice in Aikido spent his first 10 years of practice in Japan. After 10 years they started to teach him the internal (Japanese “ki”= Chinese “ch’i”), and he expressed huge frustration, saying “Why did they teach us the most important part last?!” On returning to the U.S. and establishing his own school, he started teaching the internal side, starting with his first class.