Having just completed a year's study of the traditional Yang style 108 posture form with Sam Masich, a great teacher and formal disciple of Dr. Yang Jwing Ming and Liang Shouyu, I now sit back and mull over what I have gained from the experience.

Before we started training with Bruce Frantzis both Jane and I had studied a combination Yang long form designed by the late Rose Lee, with our then new teacher Brian Cooper, now an Energy Arts senior instructor. This took 4 years and during the training we also started to learn Bruce's Wu style short form. As Brian delved deeper into this new form and began to study the Wu long form as well, we tagged along and eventually this was all we practised, and now teach. Then recently I began to sense a gap in my understanding of the tradition our Wu style came from. What we practise and teach is very specialised since Bruce's teacher Liu Hung Chieh adapted the style he learnt from it's founder Wu Jien Ch'uan to be a more potent vehicle for his personal Taoist practices. So what we teach is great for health, internal neigong and meditative practice, but within it's subtle small frame movements, almost invisible tissue twists and stretches, and powerful internal energy work, it can be hard (especially for beginners) to perceive the basic physical meaning of the moves, as they were originally portrayed in Yang style Tai Chi, the parent of Wu style.

So what did I enjoy about learning the Yang 108? As Sam says, "this style is just pure vanilla" - so true because what you see is what you get; nothing hidden in the meaning and application. And Sam also "mixed it up" a little more during the training by teaching the long form from the perpective of the 37 Essential Forms - simplifying the movements even more into the least number of non-repeated movements within the choreography of the form. These essential movements (e.g. ward off, rollback, press and push are four making up Grasp Birds Tail), were then classified further into Thirteen Families so it became even clearer how you can naturally transit between moves outside of the normal sequence of the form. Thus the Lu family of moves could be seen as Rollback, Needle at Sea Bottom, Step Back Repulse Like Monkey and Cloud Hands (which is also in the Peng family). After many years of practising Tai Chi in great detail, this more accessible view of the parent form was very refreshing.

I now feel I have the tools to broaden my teaching of the Longwater school style, to make it more digestible to beginners and those who have some Tai Chi experience but from other more traditional styles. I have already started to introduce these concepts in the Wu style long form training we have recently started teaching. True Tai Chi is about creativity and adaptation - mixing it up, as opposed to "my style, not your style". Thank you, Sam, for reminding me about that.