No Fa Jin in Wu style Tai chi?

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone,

First off I’m a Long time practitioner of Hsing-I and am going to begin studying Tai Chi. I am starting with Wu style and have been told that there is no Fa Jin practiced in the system. I take most things I hear about subjects like this with a grain of salt, however I am curious to how Wu style/Old Yang approaches the teaching of Fa Jin. It is easy to see Fa Jin in Chen style and those I know who practice it do a lot of silk reeling exercises to supplement it.

So…how is Fa Jin trained in Wu style?

[Anonymous]

Hey Ryan,

Interesting question. I think there are probably some pretty strong parallels to the way you might develop it in Hsing-I…do you always work your Pi Chuan, for example, at the same speed, same size, same degree of overt opening/closing in the movements?

A lot of it comes down to how you express the neigong inside the movements, right?

Dan

[Anonymous]

Great point. I do a lot of my Hsing-I at varying speeds depending on what I want to accomplish. Power, focusing on an organ, breathing…Anyway great thought.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

hi ryan
I think you might want to add an extra grain of salt. you see good wu style people doing fa in push hands training, it’s gotta be in there, right?
bruce showed us fundamentals of Fa jin in the taiji push hands training, and he made it sound like it was universal in good taiji, although each system had slightly different ways of doing it.
now, you don’t have the fast big movement in wu form,it’s more focused on building the internal movement, so it is true you can’t see any Fa within the form.
kinda like you can’t see how fast a car can go when it’s getting worked on. form practice builds foundation of good/proper movement, then you learn how to work with it in the push hands.
at least, that’s what ive learned from bruce. but im more focused on the bagua, so id also ask some of the seniors who are more taiji focused what they have been taught…

[Anonymous]

Since speed is a theme, don’t forget, there is actually a fast form in Wu style Taiji. Make a search for it and you can find lots of videos. Particularly noteworthy are the videos from Grandmaster Ma Yueliang, who mad this training method public. Something that, as far as I know, did not survived in Yang style.

It’s a great routine. Well, essentially it’s the same routine as the slow long form but because of speed, some things are different. It gives you a new perspective on the movements and it can really balance out your training.

[Author]

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