sangngak wrote:I was told by a friend that each posture of the Yang form has it's own specific qigong. An example he gave was that in the "catch a sparrow's tail" sequence, during "press" you are , of course, pressing with the right forearm, but during the form, the first two fingers of the left hand lightly lay on the right forearm, closer to the wrist pulse than to the elbow.
If this concept is true, does YMAA have a book or DVD that tells what the qigong is for each step so we can practice it?
This is tricky as a topic.
First it is good to think of what "Postures" means, is posture defined as a move in the form or is the posture a little more pure in a sense and referring to the Shi San Shi, or 13 postures, which is one of the real names of taijiquan.
My teacher told me that the forms postures could be held as a qigong. Likewise each motion can be extracted and preformed individually. There is the sense that there are 8 basic energies that can form the basis of 8 basic qigong aspects that can be developed endlessly. Each of these 8 energies can be the basis of a moving qigong, both in terms of the internal energies and the external formal postures associated with them.
I'd like to point out that the original name for what we call "ward off left" in Yang style was "grasp sparrows tail". thus grasp sparrows tail is a single move, while the "grasp sparrows tail sequence" is the group of moves, this is a subtle distinction but worth knowing.
n example he gave was that in the "catch a sparrow's tail" sequence, during "press" you are , of course, pressing with the right forearm, but during the form, the first two fingers of the left hand lightly lay on the right forearm, closer to the wrist pulse than to the elbow.
In the style I practice one does not press with the right forearm, which is as a passive lever, instead one presses with the left hand through the lever of the right. It helps to have some exposure to different styles for this, because this energy jie is expressed in different ways, Chen style is very nice for this, the Yang styles tend to be a bit narrow in their understanding of the energy. Basically the posture can vary a lot, and the energy can still be correct, but if the energy is not correct then the posture does not matter. With the qigong, it is better to get the energy right, and not worry too much about the formal external posture. The hand positioning of jie/press can vary a great deal without problems. If the energy is correct it will be in the body and express through the hands, one can test for the energy in the body and need not pay attention to the hands unless they are not moving with the body.