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Last night my wife and I had a chance to catch a movie. We decided to watch Miami Vice even though we’ve heard a lot of mixed reviews on the flick.
One of the main criticisms of the movie is that it lacks the 80s flair that defined the original Miami Vice. No 80s music, no pastels, no big hair. Booh..
The love story between the characters was just unbelievable. No real build up, no real emotions, nada.. just cheesy lines that barely went over 5 words in length. In one love scene, the female actress proceeded to tear up.. GIVE ME A BREAK!
During the movie, we walked around the living room, made johnsonville brats with ketchup, mustard and jalapenos, and did a bit of cleaning. We got a lot done b/c the movie was just slow, not very engaging and not very tied together.
Overall ratings: SUCKS
After getting home, I was happy to see the Chen Taijiquan: Laojia Yilu & Straight Sword DVD featuring Ren Guangyi with Music/Narration by Lou Reed (wow.. was that a mouthful!) in the mail. One thing to note off the top, this is a demonstration video, not a learning video with detailed breakdowns of form postures, etc.
Production Quality
The video came nicely packaged in a full-sized DVD case. The chapters and menus were accessible and very easy to navigate. One of the things that caught me about this video was the following line from the description:
Captured in high-definition (HD) in New York’s Central Park, each form is presented in a multiple-angle format, and showing the name of each movement.
I was really expecting to see very good, high quality video, but instead I got some blockiness and distortion on my 56″ HDTV. Granted, the video may have been “captured” in HD, but that really doesn’t mean much if the target format is standard DVD! What’s the difference?
[Stepping on A/V Soapbox] High Definition (HD) video has AT LEAST 720 lines of vertical display, whereas an NTSC standard DVD has at least 480 lines of vertical display. This could be the reason why I saw some levels of blockiness. Also, my DVD player automagically upscales regular DVD (480) to 1080i, which would make the video artifacts much more noticeable.
In addition, most HD content is captured with an aspect ration of 16:9 (aka widescreen mode), however the DVD is produced with an aspect ratio of 4:3 (aka standard square TV mode).
Overall, the video quality was decent, not by any means horrible. I just felt the “HD” convention on the video description is a bit misleading due to the resolution and aspect ratio of the footage being formatted for standard DVD. [Getting off my A/V Soapbox now]
Content
As noted by the title, this DVD contains demonstrations of 2 Chen taiji forms.
1. Laojia Yilu
2. Straight Sword
The camera angle alternated between front and side views depending on the movement. The name of each movement was displayed in a caption.
It’s always interesting to note how master’s choose the name of movement. I’m more familiar with the standard names like “buddha warrior pounds mortar”, however RGY chose to call the movement “Vajra Pestels”. Just a minor difference, but enough to catch my attention and wonder.
Each form is then played again with Front/Side and Rear/Side angle options. During any given point during the form, the “angle” button can be pushed on a DVD remote to switch the angles. This is especially nice to get extra clarification and alternate viewing angles for home training. I see this feature to be quite valuable from a “reference material” perspective.
Overall, each form is played 3 times. First with alternating front/side angles with music and movement name captions. The second time with manual front/side angle options and the third time with rear/side angle options.
The DVD contains a special section called “Flipper Vision” for the two forms. It’s basically a sequence of pictures of RGY demonstrating the forms in “flip book” fashion. Again, good for referencing alignment and posture.
Price
The DVD has an original list price of $39.95, however I got a 20% discount for preordering it. I paid a total of $37.46 including 2-day shipping.
Conclusion
Despite all the hype about HD, I’m happy with the purchase. The ability to change angles on the fly with a “follow-me” version (back/side view demonstration) make it a great reference video for those training in the Ren Guangyi flavor of the form. The production quality is high for a martial arts DVD and I hope this will be the future of martial arts related material.
[Revised on 7/24/06 to address clarity questions received privately and modified rating system/scoring]
Specs
Format: DVD
Performer: Mark Wasson
Cost w S/H: $54.95
Shipping: 8 Days
Website: World Chen Tai Chi Videos
Production Quality (3/5)
The DVD arrived in a small audio CD style casing, not the Long DVD Box case that movies come in. The DVD labeling is printed using the HP LightScribe technology, which was quite a nice touch and the first disk I’ve received like this!
Nice menu system with chapter point marking for each movement (32 in total). Video is clear and easy to distinguish as movement is done against a white background. Sound was average with minor ambient noise and echoes. Showed multiple angles for some applications.
Content (2/5)
Each chapter consisted of movement demonstration, then application demonstration. The movement demonstration was clear and generally shown one time, sometime emphasizing twining and opening/closing of the body. Application demonstrations were sometimes repeated in slow motion.
The “attacker” did not put too much energy behind the attacks, often moving very slowly or holding out the arm in order for the demonstration to be performed.
The usage of elbow strikes and wrist qinna were heavily emphasized, often resulting in the same elbow strike, wrist qinna, elbow qinna, shoulder qinna, take down for multiple movements. For instance, similar repeat applications were shown for lazy tie coat, single whip, twist knee brush step, etc. More variety would have been appreciated.
COMMON AND OFTEN REPEATED APPLICATION:Left Hand (LH) grabs attacker’s left arm at one’s shoulder height, Right Hand (RH) sweeps under at attacker’s left arm [Qinna using shoulder if necessary][elbow strike if necessary], right arm open sweeping technique to assist in take down.
Did not show any movement transition applications. For instance, the transition between Six Sealings, 4 Closing to Single Whip.
A majority of the movments that consisted of one or more subcomponents, ie walking obliquely has 4 subcomponents, showed disjoint applications for each of the subcomponents instead of a continuous flow of attack, counter, counter-attack sequences. For example, walking obliquely showed a deflection, however neither the transition application between the deflection and the shoulder stroke, nor the shoulder stroke and hook hand was shown. This causes me to question the meaning of the sequencing as a whole if disjoint applications/movements are emphasized.
Near the beginning of the video, the following point is emphasized:
It’s very important that you focus where your hands are. Since your hands are here, the action happens here.
Perhaps this is the reason why disjoint applications are demonstrated? Again, I question the meaning of the movement as a whole if a continuous, flowing application is not shown for the duration of the whole movement.
Again, consider the movment walking obliquely (for a visual, see timing (1:48 to 2:02) of CXW demonstrating the movement). First off, the application is shown with a differing starting position than the end of White Crane Spreads Wings. If so, why even do White Crane? If an application cannot be shown for the transition of White Crane to Walking Obliquely, then why have them in that sequence?
As a comparison, in my previous review of the Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan Long Form DVD, it was noted that Yang Jun showed application FOR ALL OF THE TRANSITIONS, explaining why the transitions moved as such and why one movement follows another.
Price (2/5)
Most martial arts videos are priced around $50, so this is pretty standard pricing, however based on my feedback regarding the content, I think it’s quite expensive given the negatives.
Overall (2/5)
The focus on disjoint applications instead of continuous flows of attack, counter, counter-attack applications and multiple repeats of similar applications weigh heavily on my overall review of this DVD. However, by emphasizing disjoint applications, the video showed how chen taiji movements could be broken down into common elements. But for something defined as “Secret Fighting Applications” I expected more.
I received my order of the Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan Long Form DVD in the mail yesterday (for more information, see the Yang Family Tai Chi website). After placing the order via Paypal, it took about 4 or so business days to arrive. This will be a brief review of my first impressions of the footage. Bear in mind, I haven’t seen all of it.
Production Quality (8/10)
I feel the quality production quality of the DVD is quite good. It has a good opening menu as well as menu navigation for chapter points. In fact, the chapter point navigation was superbly done. It has links to the various sections of the form (roughly 3-4 movements) that you can easily skip to and view the content.
The clarity is good and with roughly 190 mins on 1 DVD, I would’ve figured the bitrate to be on the low end resulting in bad video quality, but that was not the case. I was happy viewing the video on my 56″ TV, though it would’ve been nicer if the video was produced in widescreen, but that’s not really key.
In the demonstration of the long form, there are mulitple camera angles that blend into the one another. Very nicely done camera work, not your typical, view only from the side for the whole form kind of thing.
Content (10/10)
Wow! It may be a bit extreme to give this a full 10/10, but I was very satisfied with the content provided in the DVD. I was imagining the audio narrative to be overlayed by a native english speaker, but Yang Jun handled the delivery of material in english quite well. Not on the level of Joseph Chen, but he was easily understandable and took time and effort to explain things very clearly.
The video consists of 3 major sections.
- Overview of the 10 principles
- Demonstration of the Long Form
- Detailed movement explanation.
In the overview of the 10 Principles, Yang Jun takes his time in explaining what what is the meaning of the 10 Principles of Yang Cheng Fu and gives examples of their meaning in the execution of the form. I really enjoyed seeing his demonstration of what it means to distinguish between full and empty (principle 4) as he showed how this applied to various stepping methods and the ability to shift/move based on full/empty requirement.
However, what really caught my attention was his explanation of Principle 8, harmonizing the internal and external. He emphasized in order to harmonize this, you have to understand the meaning of the external, that is, what is the meaning of this movement. Sure.. I know, we’ve heard this all before, and he showed the basic application of brush knee twist step. But he actually goes way further in the detailed movement explanation.
During his explanations of detailed movement explanation, he went into quite a bit of detail, basically annotating every single weight shift, focus on knee alignments, remembering the principles and where the energy should be. However, after going over the explanation, he poses a question:
What is the meaning of this movement?
This is where it gets interesting as he proceeds to demonstrate the meaning via showing an application of the movement. It was very nice to see him demonstrate the double ward off right application and how both hands are used to perform a qinna. But then duing his rollback application, he reshows the double ward off application and demonstrates the roll back in the context of someone countering his qinna! The cool thing is that he does this for EACH AND EVERY SINGLE MOVEMENT!
I only watched about half of the detailed explanation, but I get the feeling he will do this throughout the whole explanation section. It was really nice to see all the qinna in the yang form, especially in regards to the application of fist under elbow and needle at sea bottom. Great kudos goes out to Yang Jun for sharing this information without requiring you to attend a private class or workshop! If he share this much information on video, I wonder how much depth he’d go into in person!
The cool thing is that it seemed as though Yang Jun really enjoys doing the application. I could often hear the “THUD!” of his palm striking that poor fellows chest. The application for separate left/right foot was hilarious as he twined both the fellow’s arm and kicked him in the bum!
Price (6/10)
The video is a bit pricey for 1 DVD. I spent about $92 total including shipping/handling and an extra $8 fee for being a non-member of the Yang Family Tai Chi Chuan Association. But with the depth and coverage of content, I am a happy camper and not disappointed.
Overall (9/10)
Overall, I am quite happy with the purchase and really enjoy the content and material being presented. I definitely see this as a video that I will often come back to for reference. I expressed my enjoyment to the secretary of the association after receiving my DVD and she told me additional videos on the sword and push hands are in the works. If they are at this level of quality and production, I will definitely get it. I feel they have set the bar high in terms of what we can expect from taijiquan instructional material.
