My third attempt at learning Tai-Chi, is much different. This time, at the YMCA with Brandon Forbes, the class is far more structured, much more Eastern. Brandon had traditional training from a Korean master in San Francisco's Chinatown for many, many years. (He has many stories. :)) However, we're is still at the YMCA, not a real dojo, and the class falls short of carrying an Eastern flavor.
Before the class begins, we still lose time chatting for a while, sometimes too long; at first, the class is only an hour long, and that time lost was precious. Every term we had one or two newbies that come in , but they rarely come back for a second term. It seemed they were just curious and not serious. Brandon has asked his Kung-Fu pupils to cross-train in Tai-Chi, and between them and the few Tai-Chi only pupils, we have enough to keep the class going at the YMCA. Since the Kung-Fu class followed the Tai-Chi class, they have been merged into one class now which is 2.5 hours long. After the first hour, Tai-Chi training falls off to the side, and I am left alone to practice my forms, if there is room, which is not always the case.
As I mentioned above, the class has a more Eastern martial arts structure. We have a little opening ceremony, mediate, warm up, practice, then close with another little ceremony. The ceremonies for the Kung-Fu class was pretty elaborate, but the Tai-Chi ceremony is merely lining up and bowing.
The mediation portion of the class seems a bit chaotic. Brandon is trying to expose us to as many mediation forms as he knows. (Mediation is kind of a second day job for him, since is offers meditation workshops which corporations executive attend.) Our meditation is often accompanied by chanting, like some old monks would.
The warm up portion is a variation of a Shaolin Joint Rotation exercise; Brandon calls it Chi-Kung. (I found several Shaolin Joint Rotation variations on the web.)
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For the third portion, we move on to what Brandon calls Chi-Gong. We demonstrate a few Chi-Gong moves/postures, like Dragon Sleeping or Crane Supporting Nest. Sometimes we hold the postures for a long time! (Brandon has a story where they had to hold Horse Grazing for more than 10 minutes.) Table 1 to the right shows a sampling the Chi-Gong Brandon has shared with us so far.
Finally, we work on the Tai-Chi form before breaking up into Kung-Fu and Tai-Chi groups.
Early on, during my first term when everyone in the class was a newbie, Brandon would lead us through the form, describing the movements. He didn't use their names; he doesn't know their names; he doesn't care what they were called; he cares that they were performed correctly, more or less. (He quoted his master once, "It's not important to know what the monkey's movements are called. It's important to know what the monkey is doing.") To Brandon, this is self-defense class; he wants us to know how to apply the movements in a fight, just in case we need it. (Interestingly, he has given us application for only a couple pieces of the form, but all the Chi-Gong have names. Go figure. And when it comes to application, he often says, "You're smart; you'll figure it out." Or, "I'll show that to you when you get closer to black belt.")
Remember how on Bob's page I said it was nice to have a live instructor, how the instructor can be adaptive to the needs of the pupils? Well, Brandon and Bob are different in this matter. Bob would take as much time as needed, even working 1-on-1 with a pupil that needed some extra instruction while the rest of us practiced what we knew. That can really slow down the class. However, Brandon would demonstrate a new movement just a couple of times, perform it with us a couple of times, then watch us totally embarrass ourselves few times as we try to perform it again. After that, you were on your own. If you needed help with the finer details, tough. So long as we get the general idea, he would move on and let us practice it that way. (The plan was to come back to work on the finer points later, much later.) You see, Brandon is a more traditional martial arts instructor, not a hand-holding instructor. Not for us anyway.... Later, as we gained proficiency in the form, he asks one of the students to lead the class while he watched. It's quite unnerving, but you learn fast!
Something else is different in Brandon's class. (Well, actually, Bob's class was discontinued, so this never had a chance to come up with his class....) As new pupils came in, the class does not go back to the beginning again. If it did, that would totally SUCK! We'd never get any where new. And Brandon can't teach both new material to the more experienced pupils and old material to the new pupils. Instead, he lets one of the experienced pupils teach the new pupils the crappy version that they remember, while he teaches the other more experienced pupils new material. Then the experienced pupil left behind must pick up the new material from the other experienced pupils as best as he can. It sucked being left behind and taught some half-assed piece of the form. But I guess that's the traditional way of things.
Later on, we had a cascade of teaching as more newbies came in. We had like a generation thing going. Brandon would teach new advanced material to me, while Jayne taught Bruce the beginner material. Then after class, I'd teach the Jayne intermediate material. Now, I'm no master, and Brandon is not reinforcing/correcting my performance of the form, so I'm really sloppy. Jayne is picking up my sloppy version, but she's doing a sloppy version of my form. So she's teaching Bruce a sloppy version of a sloppy version. Needless to say, Bruce is sloppy. When Brandon saw it, he went bonkers; I can't imagine how he thought it would come out any other way. Today, I'm the only pupil who is there for only Tai-Chi, but we have some newbie Kung-Fu pupils cross-training. They're getting the advance Tai-Chi training during class at the same time I get it, and on the weekends, we meet outside class to go over the less advanced material. Brandon insists this is the traditional method. Instructor works to advance the senior pupil while junior pupils instruct the newbies. Then senior pupils instruct the junior pupils while the newbies practice.
Brandon has also taught me a basic Tai-Chi Sword form; he is also teaching me a Fighting Fan form.
One more note about difference between Bob and Brandon. To me, Tai Chi is a way to keep moving, to keep the joints moving and limber and muscles toned, some preventative physical therapy if you will. To Bob, it is meditation leading to self-discipline. To Brandon, Tai Chi is a martial art, self-defense akin Kung-Fu.
Chi-Gong: "Chi" is universal energy, vital/life energy. "Gong" loosely translates into something requiring work/skill and time to master. So Chi-Gong is a skill/exercise to master/manipulate Chi. So, meditating is considered a still (laying, sitting, or standing) form of Chi-Gong, Tai-Chi is a walking form Chi-Gong. Even acupressure is Chi-Gong. That's more general than Chi-Gong in Brandon's class. Chi-Gong in Brandon's class is more like a standing form Chi-Gong.
Chi-Gong vs. Qi-Gong: There are two spelling systems dominating Chinese to English translations: "Romanization" (Chi) and "Cultural Revolution" (Qi). Some books favor the former which many find easier to read, others favor the latter as more modern/correct. I mix them willy-nilly.