Practicing the Eight Posture Simplified Yang Style Form

It was 0630 when I walked along the seafront this morning, the sea was flat calm and a steel grey colour reflecting an overcast sky, small wavelets made a soft whooshing noise as they lapped gently on the pebble beach. It was not cold, about 20º C.

Starting the "Eight Posture Simplified Yang Style Form", I stood for a few minutes in meditation on the grass at the top of the beach then slowly stepped out with the left foot to the "Open tai chi posture", then moving slow, and controlled I held the ball and turned to the left into "parting the wild horses main" left foot forward then repeating the posture but with the right foot forward.

Without pausing I held the ball, stepped in half a step with the left, (rear foot) to form "White crane spreads it's wings" letting the ball of the right foot lightly touch the ground before moving into "Brush knee and press" with the left hand forward and stepping forward with the right foot into the same posture but with the left hand forward. Turning through 180 degrees clockwise I formed the "single whip" posture, with the right hand pressed forward and the fingers of the left hand forming the cranes beak.

Turning back, (90 degrees anti clockwise) and stepping in with the left foot I move in to "Cloud hands" circling the arms whilst stepping to the right three times. Then "Grasp the bird’s tail" this is really, three moves in one, from a right sided bow stance, we "roll back", "press", and then "push" before turning 90 degrees to the left in to the "Close posture".

The above discription of the eight posture simplified yang style form was difficult to write and no doubt just as difficult to read. I can not remember how long it took me to learn the eight posture form, but for ages I worked through the form repeating the postures over and over again until my muscles knew what to do with out me thinking of it, and I could start and end the form in the same spot blind folded.

One day after our small group had been struggling with the eight posture form, our instructor gave a demonstration of the 42 posture Yang form, it was stunning to watch and he rightly deserved the round of applause he received afterwards. When I asked him how long had he been practicing the 42 posture form, he said seven years, I can well believe it.

You can learn the eight posture form in a matter of a few weeks, to learn it properly a few months, to understand it a few years, but to feel it, a lifetime.

The Eight Posture Simplified Yang Style Form
1. Open tai chi
2. Parting the wild horses mane
3. White crane spreads its wings
4. Brush knee and press
5. Single whip
6. Cloud hands
7. Grasp the birds tail
8. Close