days 89 & 90: Yang long form

concepts:

• wuji
• tai chi (static & dynamic)
  

forms:

• Yang long form

this week was pretty straightforward, with concepts coming from last quarter and the bulk of time spent working through the long form.

day 89

Sifu appears to be starting at 8 am to help those students who have to leave class early. in addition, to help prior students from last quarter who are unable to make both Tuesdays and Thursdays, he also seems to be covering more of the long form in the Tuesday class than the Thursday one.

i noticed that we went farther in the 30 minutes before class than for the regular 8:30 class time. but since the early students were all returning from last quarter, i think this made things go much faster.

having done the short form, i can see that the long form is largely a rearrangement of the short form, except with more repetitions. Art said this is why the long form is not that much more difficult to learn than the short form. he cautioned, however, that there were a few new techniques in the Yang long form, although they would be coming later.

day 90

today was an extension of Tuesday, and we managed to work through most of the form we learned in the 30 minute "pre-class" time from Tuesday. however, we spent more time presenting the combat applications today, as well as giving repetitions and refinements to help the new students in the class get used to the techniques. in addition, we also took time to work through the concepts of wuji, static tai chi (yin and yang while stationary, in terms of weight distribution and muscle tension), and dynamic tai chi (yin and yang in motion, in terms of direction of movement and force).

that's really all. again, short, huh? but it helps to have covered some of the basic materials before.