Saturday, February 22, 2014

Taiji - Sun Style (Sun Jianyun) 孫式太極 孫劍雲


Sun Lu Tang was the creator of Sun style tai chi. He had several children. One of them was a daughter, Sun JianYun. I am embedding a video here of Sun JianYun performing the family style of tai chi. This is the 97 form routine.




There are a few points here that I want to emphasize. First of all, she moves very quickly, but every step is precise. The follow steps are always placed in the same place. She barely touches her foot down before she is moving it again. This doesn't happen by accident. It takes years of practice to make this happen.

Second, she is very flexible and limber. She does a kick at about 5:00 into the video where her foot goes about chest height. I don't know exactly how old she was when this video was made, but she must be well into her 80s. That flexibility is what a lifetime of tai chi can do for you. It's not immortality, but it is great health into old age.

Third, she demonstrates the Sun sword forms beginning at about 6:20. Note the Bagua footwork here. There is a lot of "slicing", but not much "thrusting". I have never seen this before. Really interesting.

Starting at about 5:20, she demonstrates something else that I can't identify. Can someone help me out here and tell me what she is doing?


© 2014 Eric Borreson

2 comments: