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I find Vincent Lasorso’s six basic attributes in the August issue of T’AI CHI very important to all persons who want to do their Taichichuan really good.

Confucius said, "Learning without thinking gives one a disorderly mind; thinking without learning makes one flighty."

Lasorso’s first three attributes, patience, practice, and discipline, are primarily for learning, and are the minimum requirement for any good student. His next three attributes, inquiry, experimentation, and imagination, belong to thinking, and are essential to higher accomplishment.

1. Change in the Learning Environment

In the old days, people learned Taichichuan from their own fathers or uncles since childhood. It is not infrequent that the fathers forced the children to learn it for prolonged years under extreme hardship. It is from the intensive training under close supervision many hours a day that one becomes skillful and understands. This approach to training is no longer practical in the twentieth century, especially when most people learn it after adulthood.

Taichichuan has been taught and practiced within the Chen family for many generations before Yang Lu-chan learned and taught it in Peking. None of these early masters had the opportunity to read any literature on Taichichuan.

Based on the traditional method of transmitting the art as described above, and on the intuitive or subconscious inquiry (as emphasized by Lasorso), during the continued practice after the individuals were already very skillful, taichichuan was developed from around 1860 to 1920 into five major styles, with different emphasis and forms. During this period, various literature on Taichichuan also emerged. After 1920, most contributions are confined to the individual styles.

2. Learning in the Late 20th Century

The change in the teaching method and the appearance of the extensive Taichichuan literature require a change in the method of learning and studying Taichichuan.

First, learning as an adult unable to spend many hours every day to practice this art, from which you get the inspiration, thinking should always accompany learning.

This is what you do when you take a college course on most subjects. To prevent you from becoming a copycat, imitating the forms routinely as if doing a calisthenic, you should, when you learn each movement, form, and posture, use your mind to discover the common characteristics or principles of doing the movement and forms, if this aspect is expressly taught or pointed out by your teacher.

You will not be able to discover much yourself when you learn the first few postures. But if you use your own imagination, and ask questions when necessary, you will be able to discover many of the common characteristics of Taichichuan by the time you have learned a dozen postures or so. And the more you learn, the more you will discover.

If your teacher’s Taichichuan is really good, doing the whole series with consistent principles, you may have discovered many aspects which are basic in the solo exercise by the time you finished learning the series, and apply them to most movements and forms. This about what you get when you successfully finish a college course.

Second, if you make intensive inquiry based on your limited learning from a single teacher, you may be duplicating the efforts of many previous masters. On the other hand, if you learn from several teachers before you have enough judgment, you may become confused with many conflicting instructions.

Assuming that you have a very good teacher and have learned well, you should make use of what you have learned from him as a starting point to inquire into the existing literature, which is the result of life-long practice and discovery of the great masters.

At this stage, you do not waste your time on the so called "philosophy," or something "on" or "about" Taichichuan, which touches the subject no more than skin deep. You go directly into the center of the theme, that is: the matters directly concerned with, or related to, the methods of doing and improving your Taichichuan.

3. Inquiring into Taichichuan Literature

The basic literature consists of the several pieces generally called Taichichuan classics, all dealing with methodology. These classics, concisely worded, are subject to different interpretations of various authors. While many experts do read them, very few consistently apply these basic principles to their taichichuan.

Anyone may read these classics from a fresh angle and find something useful. Although they appeared about a hundred years ago, Chinese magazine articles continue to discuss them, or point out the significance of certain points, from fresh angles.

Supplementary principles and applications are published by leading masters of the several major styles. Although most experts read books of their own style, very few persons read literature of other styles.

All Taichichuan is directly or indirectly derived from the Chen style, and books and periodicals on Chen style contain many of the most subtle and sophisticated techniques which have not been made use of by other styles.

Although a few books on Yang style do mention some of the technical terms used by the chen style such as the "strength of twisting silk," none tells how to apply the Chen techniques in their own styles. Here is a wealth of techniques not much made use of outside Chen style. Many of these techniques, which are consistent to and harmonious with your own style, may well be incorporated to improve and enrich your Taichichuan.

Moreover, two pieces of the classics commonly observed by all styles were written by Wu Yu-shiang (1812-1880), and Wu’s own style was transmitted through his nephew Li I-ju (1832 - 1892) to How Wei-chen (1849 - 1920), who founded the How style. Even fewer authors read books on the How style. There are, of course, books on the Yang style, Wu Chian-chuan style, and Sun style.

Therefore, instead of basing study only on the teaching of one’s instructor and directly doing your own imagination and inquiry, you should thoroughly study all the valuable contributions in print by the highly esteemed experts and authors, differentiating those special aspects which are solely for a particular style from aspects which are commonly applicable to your own style.

Knowledge in all fields of arts and science are accumulated and improved in the same way. You study all existing knowledge, compare, differentiate, and digest. Then you make use of those portions which are compatible to your own style to enrich your Taichichuan. You start by enlarging your knowledge through learning, then applying your imagination.

4. Experimentation and Exploration

Here experimentation comes in to assist your judgment. You want your improved knowledge to enrich your own Taichichuan. But you do not want to take everything indiscriminately. Mixing French or German into English does not improve your English.

You test your findings or premise in your own exercise, and ask your students to experiment with theirs. Experience shows that, by experimentation with alternative methods, sometimes a student before learning a given posture may tell more objectively which method results in a smoother energy in that posture. This reduces the arbitrary and subjective judgment.

After having made full use of the existing knowledge and techniques, you will be in a better position to more intelligently explore other improvements than those borrowed from the various styles and masters.

With the improved skill from your prolonged practice, you matured intuition and imagination become more productive at a higher level.

Of course, you must thoroughly understand and have digested the principles in the classics so that your innovations fully conform to them. It is now generally agreed that, without conforming to the classics, it is not Taichichuan. Yang Cheng-fu wrote in 1934 that the scope of further improving this art is unlimited.

5. The So-called ‘Lower Level Taichichuan’

Bruce Kumar Frantzis made a pessimistic but true statement in the same issue of T’AI CHI. He said, "In the next 20 or 30 years, the level of high class Taichichuan will distinctly decline, seriously decline. It is in serious danger of dying out. Middle level Taichichuan is doing okay. Lower level Taichichuan is increasing like hell."

To improve the health of the populace, the Chinese government created in 1956 a simplified Taichichuan series. The word "simplified" has a double meaning.

Based on Yang style, the series is abridged into 24 postures. But many of the subtleties of the Yang style were also removed in order to make it easier to learn and to rapidly spread it to the sole country. The object of this series was a great success. The series is now the most popular one in China and practiced by more persons than any other style in the whole world.

The government did not make the mistake of substituting this series for the established styles. The same government agency also sponsored and published an excellent book for each of the five major styles. And private authors are continuously publishing.

But the popularity of this simplified Taichichuan does reduce the potential number of persons who could have studied the established orthodox styles. The general public does not realize that the health benefits depend on the seriousness of doing the exercise.

The "lower level Taichichuan" referred to by Kumar Frantzis is actually below this level. Traditionally, a student was not supposed to teach Taichichuan until he has a prolonged study under an established expert, during which period he assisted his teacher to teach. This was the practice up to 1937 before the Japanese invasion of China.

Then, after the 1960’s, when Taichichuan became suddenly popular in the West, there are more students who want to learn than there are teachers. Many persons who learned only a few months started to teach. Yet, in choosing a teacher, students usually ask how long a person has taught without regard to how long and with whom the teacher learned.

Faced with this great demand, persons also prematurely publish their own books, including self-designed series. Most of these books fail to lead students toward the best or even the correct tradition.

Yet, many of these styles are created supposedly to substitute for the traditional styles. some books and videotapes are actually counter-productive. Some are produced merely for quick profit from the high demand of the indiscriminate consumers. All these lean to Frantizis’ complaint that "lower level Taichichuan is increasing like hell."

Teaching and publishing prematurely will have to depend heavily on one’s own imagination without correct and adequate learning. Some authors in the United States even wrote that, "there is no rule in Taichichuan." This may lead to wild imagination. With such attitude, the art can be developed into anything but Taichichuan.

Here the motto of the late Grandmaster Tung Ying-chieh (1885-1961) should be observed. He said: "Follow the rules, familiarize the rules, digest the rules, spiritualize the rules, never deviate from the rules." If you spiritualize your Taichichuan without conforming to the rules, it is no more Taichichuan.

An opposite direction is learning without thinking or imagination. Let us cite one concrete example. When an author who emphasizes the distribution of one’s body weight to the two feet, he carelessly wrote on one occasion that the whole body weight should be borne by only one foot. What he really meant must have been that one of the two feet must bear more weight than the other.

But one of the students wrote in his own book the same statement of the teacher, that the whole body weight should always be borne by one foot.

This can only be done when jumping from one position to another. although this is an extreme example, it illustrates the danger of indiscreet learning without thinking. This is one of the major reasons of stagnancy.

In China, there is a saying, "a student who is not better than his teacher is not a good student of his teacher." Nothing is perfect, and ideally, everything should improve from time to time. A student should not stick fast to, or defend, his teacher’s teaching indiscriminately, or there will be no progress.

The students should correct their teachers’ errors and deficiencies and further improve what their teachers taught, toward the direction of fuller conformity to the Taichichuan principles. Of course, a student should not, intentionally or carelessly, change his teacher’s Taichichuan by deviating further from the principles.

6. Towards "Higher Level Taichichuan"

At the present stage of the art, and assuming that you do not consider your own Taichichuan the "supreme ultimate" higher level Taichichuan should come from extensive and thorough learning, combined with objective inquiry, imagination, good judgment, and experimentation, plus diligent practice to spiritualize it without deviating from the principles.