ending, beginning

I love the feeling of completing a new form – that is part of the addiction of martial arts for me. But it never really ends, does it? You’ve got to keep practicing it to recall the gross motions, then drill it endlessly to get the finer motions. Then you start playing with different timings, different applications. And you have to start training back-to-back with similar but different routines, making sure everything is fully consolidated and separated.

Sunday was the third day-long seminar in the Sun style tai ji form (the competition form, 73 moves. Any Sun stylists would not be satisfied with it, I am sure…) and we have finished connecting the dots to string the motions together after months between each seminar.

So I have finished/ begun a new form and have the joy of playing with a new toy. But this is not a toy to be set aside once the initial excitement fades for the child

Sun style is one of the five main styles of taiji. I don’t have plans in the near future to go any more deeply into the Sun system – this form is enough to give a taste. Mere mortals cannot master all five main styles. I am pretty satisfied with this exposure to the Sun style – it should keep me satisfied for some time.

It has many similarities to the Sha family taiji routines. Actually, the reverse is true. Sha Guo Zheng (Sha family patriarch) was a devoted student of Sun Lu Tang and paid tribute to the Sun style in several movements when creating his own routines. That connection alone is enough to draw me in for a taste of Sun style – but now it is back to work on more long-term projects, such as those Sha family routines (while keeping the Sun form alive).

As always, I feel lightness and heaviness at the same time. The lightness is the excitement of wrestling with and coming to understand something new. The heaviness is the burden of maintaining a wide spread of routines…