As I woke up this morning, I decided to do some of the yang style taiji in the morning but I started working on the 24 form that I had learned a while back. As I was going thru the form, my mind wandered off a bit and started thinking about the yang long form (as done by TT Liang) that I had recently learned. I then thought to myself, which one should I work on more?

I then started thinking about those 2 forms and tried to think about their differences. Mainly, it’s just the external expression of the forms that differ, as noted in the YCF vs CMC posture comparison. It’s kind of interesting that the principles can be expressed in almost contradictory fashions. I think it comes a time when one has to quit thinking about external forms, movements, etc and start to analyze the underying principles of internal martial arts.

For instance, is the qi sunk to the dantien? This is a very hard thing to do and I think it can only be done after a lot zhanzhuang practice to help us relax and develop a sense of central equilibrium (zhong ding). Only after learning to relax can we learn to use our stablilizer muscles for structural integrity. True, I think this aspect should be inherent in all forms of martial arts, not just internal martial arts (IMA) (aka neijia). I do think it’s a shame that it’s emphasized more in the internal arts as opposed to the external ones.

But what I think I was mainly trying to get at is, why so many different forms and styles if all are governed by a single set of principles? What’s even more interesting is why are they so many disrepancies within each style itself? I think it might be good notion that all IMA contains the principles but perhaps each style emphasizes certain aspects of the principles more than others. In reference to the YCF/CMC comparison, perhaps it’s just the case that the CMC camp emphasizes the sung interpretation of “relaxed” more than the YCF camp does. But I think ultimately, this is a good example of how to learn. Instead of trying to mock the teacher externally, I think both of them had internalized the concepts/principles and made it their own.

A teacher can only show us the door, but it’s up to us to walk down the path. This reminds me of a quote that I had read by TT Liang that went something like this:

If you rely too much on teachers, best not have any teachers. If you rely too much on books, best not read any books.

I think he hit a spot with this one. We are responsible for our own learning, teachers can only be a guide, but ultimately the work will be done by us.

The main reason why I had started this post was b/c I was curious as to “which yang form” I should practice more. There are so many styles and variations of styles out there and ultimately I believe they are just different representations of the same underlying principles. Different strokes for different folks. Pick a stroke that best suits us and train, train, train. Ultimately, I don’t think it matters what forms I do. What matters most is that I train in accordance to the principles and internalize the concepts. Life is too short to be so concerned with what lineage is this or what style is that. True gongfu is a result of practice.