Journey of the Pookysan

Yes, I passed my Upper Block ‘B’ test in Tai Chi.  It is pretty good to have a yellow chevron on my sash.  It will allow me to move forward in my Solo Form and finally get to work on more than short staff basics when the summer rolls around.

The test was good. We had to demonstrate some stance stepping which isn’t as hard as it sounds.  Well, except doing Dragon stance backwards.  then we performed part one of the Solo Form as a group.  I liked this part.  All in all the test went well.

After watching Lea performing her Upper Block ‘B’ test in Kung fu has driven me to pick up the art and get ready form my Lower Block ‘B’ test in March.  Yup! MARCH!  I have a lot of work to do.  Wish me LUCK!!

As the night rolls on, I have been preparing for my promotional testing that will take place tomorrow.  I believe that I am ready.  I have been going over what I need to know for the test and I think I have it all down good enough to make a good showing tomorrow.

This is what we need to know to advance:

1. Need to be able to perform the following Chi Kung exercises:
- “Beat the Heavenly Drum”
- “Pick the Fruit”
- “Polish the Mirror”
- “Shoot the Bow”

2. Need to perform the “Seven Stance” stepping:
- Forward Bow
- Back Stance
- Cat Stance
- Dragon Stance
- Box Stance
- Crane Stance
- Horse Stance

I would talk to your Tai Chi instructor about these stepping drills if you are unfamiliar with them. They are really quite easy, but they are not specifically called out in our normal stepping drills. So if you were like me, I was totally unfamiliar with what they were talking about when they listed “Seven Stance Stepping”. However, once someone shows you what they are talking about, it will all become perfectly clear. I realized that some of our instructor’s teaching methods are like Mr. Myogi’s in the Karate Kid. He has you “Paint the Fence” until you are deliriously bored and then you find out you were learning something incredibly cool and useful. Go figure. Let’s move on.

3. Need to be able to perform the “Ying/Yang – Pushing and Yielding” drills.

4. Need to be able to define the three categories of breathing.
Now before all of you scramble to send me emails, the answer is not “In, Out, and Repeat”. The real answer is:
- Depth: The amount of breath you can retain in your lungs
- Duration: the amount of time you can hold your breath
- Purity (or Quality): basically don’t breath deeply in a crowded parking lot, try a nice grassy field

5. Need to be able to perform the “Bar and Partner Leg Stretches”.
See an instructor about these if you don’t know what they are. I would say you should stretch before performing these, but what would be the point?

6. Last but not least, you need to be able to perform the Ch’ang Style Solo Form – Part 1
I have place a listing of the moves within Part 1 of the solo form on this blog.

I think after going through this post I am ready to try to go through my promotional testing.  Wish me luck!!

As a favor to my Tai Chi peeps in the world, I am posting a list of moves for the Chang Shi Taijiquan Solo form that we are learning as part of being students at The Peaceful Dragon.  Remember that this is just a reference so that we can learn the names of the moves so that we can talk intelligently to our instructors about what we are learning.  Come to class to learn how to do it.

Many of the names for these postures were adapted by Grandmaster DeMaria to be more descriptive than the original Chinese names, which tend to be more poetic.  That said, students will appreciate that even in Grandmaster’s book, the descriptions given for moving from posture to posture just scratch the surface.  Further, Grandmaster has refined his understanding over time and today explains some of these movements differently than the book.  He also performs many of the postures with an emphasis or expression that has evolved from what is pictured in the book.

Read, enjoy and learn!