What is Yang-22?

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Posted on April 19, 2026 by Mushin

Yang-22 is dedicated to the informal sharing of my practice of the Yang style Tai Chi Chuan 22-form that was created by Grandmaster Wei Shuren.

I started my learning of the 22-form in 1997. It is the one form that I have spent the longest time practicing.

I still keep up the practice to this day, though not spending as much time as I would like. There are so many things to learn from this one form. Just to discover its contents as listed in Grandmaster Wei’s Book 2 & 3 on this particular Yang style will surely take a long, long time.

The 22-form is one form that is never boring to practice. Practicing the form is like reading a well written book and discovering something more about it each time I read it again.

I won’t try to offer instructions on how to practice the 22-form as this would be quite the challenge to do so in a blog. However, if you already practice the 22-form and your progress has slowed down then perhaps the information here would be of use to get you out of the rut.

That’s it for now. It is time for me to go and practice.

GENERAL

Old Six Routines

PRACTICE

Guidelines to Mastering the Yang 22-Form

Checking Training Progress

PRINCIPLES

The Eyes

Empty Armpits

The Elbow-Waist Connection

2/4 Dots & The Rolling Ball

The 3 Passes

The 3 Passes & 2/4 Dots

Heaven, Earth, Man

The 3 Chi Rings

The 3 Chi Rings Part 2

The 3 Chi Rings Part 3

Ancient Bell Body Part 2

Ancient Bell Body Part 3

Checking Training Progress

Posted on July 28, 2026 by Mushin

Any insights lately?

This is a question commonly asked by masters of their students.

The reason for asking is to check if the student has been practicing. A student who has been practicing regularly and has put in the hours will have questions and insights.

The questions and insights indicate to the teacher whether the practice is in the right direction and how far along it has progressed. This in turn helps the teacher determine whether to release new material or continue with the current material.

Beginners tend to have more questions than insights. If a beginner has no questions, it means they have already figured everything out or simply haven’t been practicing, hence no feedback.

If you practice carefully over a long period of time, you will inevitably and perhaps suddenly experience a moment of enlightenment. It may be that you suddenly figured out a connection between something you know from elsewhere and your current practice that you did not notice before. Or you may suddenly realize something about Technique A that can be applied to Technique B.

This flash of insight can occur during practice, while you are in the shower, or when you are reading about something that seems unrelated on the surface but suddenly connects to your current study. Let me give some examples of insights from my practice below.

Fan Through Back – In this technique we spread the arms at the end like a hand fan spreading out the leaves. When I opened a hand fan, I saw that the head also opens up because of the rivet.

So I wondered if the legs should also open up like the fan head opens. This means when performing Fan Through Back when our fists move downwards it should cause our legs to open up. Then when the fists move upwards and reach the end position, they should open into palms like the leaves of the fan.

Now this is not mentioned in the book on the 22-form so I asked my teacher. He said that Grandmaster Wei Shuren did not teach this but it certainly made him think. A few years later when my teacher was teaching a group of students he stressed to the group to open up the bottom part before moving on to the top. Imagine my surprise when I saw the video.

My surprise was more so when you considered that my teacher is the designated keeper of the style. You would normally expect a person in this position to stick religiously to the teachings he received and pass them on unchanged. However, this was not the case, which gave me a second insight.

I actually had this second insight much earlier when I asked my teacher about the chapter on the 8 Types of Force and the other chapter on 64 Methods of Internal Strength Training.

My teacher said that originally the chapter on the 64 Methods of Internal Strength Training was not supposed to be in the book because those methods do not exist in the system. However, Grandmaster Wei included it to make the system more complete. So now you know : the 8 Types of Force are what’s important. While you can combine the 8 Types of Force it does not mean you must end up with the 64 combinations though mathematically this would have been the logical outcome.

From here you can surmise that knowledge can be added, subtracted or lost. If something is useful, it gets added. If something is of no use, then you either set it aside or discard it. Insisting that knowledge that is passed down is unchanged and will be passed on as it is does not really make sense because the only constant in life is change. If everything cannot be changed that how does one explain evolution. In fact, many systems are created because the founders experienced insights that led them to changed what they know for the better. But I guess this lesson is missed by those who insist on no change.

For example, I learned an old Wing Chun style where they originally included head butts in their dummy forms. You might think that’s crazy, huh! until you see those videos of northern styles practicing head butts on trees. In this Wing Chun style when they realized that head butts were contributing to health issues they eliminated the head butt techniques from the dummy forms.

Similarly, there is a southern Shaolin system whereby a number of practitioners experienced heart issues after practicing their forms which utilize isometric tension. The grandmaster solved the issue by creating a soft form and adding it to the system.

Another example of insight is from Step Back, Repulse Monkey. At the end of the technique we imagine a dot in space in front of us dissipating at the same time as the Small Chi Sphere in our lead hand dissipates, feeling as if our Chi is reaching across space towards the dot.

When you practice this enough, you will feel your body fill up with Chi and expand like a balloon even as the dot and Small Chi Sphere dissipate. However, if you focus more on the opening and closing of the body a different insight might pop into your head. In my case, I suddenly thought of a dragon head swallowing and spitting a fireball.

The imagery of a dragon head swallowing a fireball into its body, then letting the fireball come up back, and spitting it out, comes from the transition between the Cloud Hand (3 opening, 3 closing) and Single Whip technique.

So my insight is that I can use the dragon head swallowing and spitting a fireball in Repulse Monkey. Since there are four Repulse Monkey techniques (2 left, 2 right postures) we can practice the dot dissipation in the 1st and 2nd Repulse Monkey, and the dragon head in the 3rd and 4th Repulse Monkey.

There is a secondary insight from this – using the dragon head in Repulse Monkey makes it easier to actualize the 9 Bend Pearls. So you end up with two forces if you practice Repulse Monkey this way.

Insights like these are what make the 22-form such fun to practice. If this is something you would go for, just put in the practice. As my teacher said the true price that you pay for the skill is not money but the time you put into it.

Guidelines to Mastering the Yang 22-Form

Posted on July 22, 2026 by Mushin

The 22-form can be mastered by anybody willing to have a real go at it. Here’s some brief guidelines on how to go about it successfully :-

1) You have to learn it from someone willing to teach, explain clearly and help you to keep refining your movements and understanding as you move forward in your journey.

2) You have to be willing to practice, like really practice every day, for at least 2 hours per session (it would be better if you can put in more hours).

3) Practice carefully with an eye on the principles. Ensure that the intent always precede the movement, always!

4) Take your time to go through each movement. Work the details to the bone, make the breakthrough, then you can access the next level of understanding. And the next, and the next, until you attain your goal.

5) Seek comfort in each movement. Constantly seek to Song, San. Then you can Tong, Kong.

6) Practice until the many layers of principles can be expressed in one go, until when you move the principles manifest themselves even when you no longer think of doing them. This sounds mysterious but it really is the by-product of practicing to the point of rendering what is not natural to be natural.

7) Don’t just practice blindly but constantly review, question and research your practice to keep making it better over time.

8) Be focussed to practice only the one 22-form. This is how you can deepen your practice by practicing the one form many, many times.

9) The journey is long and lonely so don’t set unrealistic goals that you may not be able to meet and end up feeling that you have failed. The only thing you should do is to keep practicing daily. If you miss a day, don’t worry about it, just pick up the practice the next day.

10) If you really desire to master the skills of the 22-form then practice. Don’t waste time thinking of wanting the skill, don’t say that you want to learn it but end up practicing little or only occasionally.

Opening the Chest 2

Posted on July 21, 2026 by Mushin

In the first post I talked about opening the chest.

To reiterate :-

The first thing you do is to touch your neck to the collar.

Once the collar thing is done, you next imagine a stone sitting at the top of your chest. The weight of the stone causes the swing doors supporting it to open downwards.

As the swing doors open, your shoulders will relax and open up sidewards. This also causes your elbows to open up sideways.

The stone continues to drop. Now it reaches your dantian, where you imagine the stone hitting a pool of still water, causing the water to ripple outwards. This ripple causes your back to fill out. Then your wrists elongate.

Continuing the above process :-

The stone continues its downward journey, arriving at your crotch. At this point the stone becomes splits into two, becoming two energetic flow.

This energetic flow splits into two. Each flow continues moving down along the inside of your legs, going down the thighs, passing the knees, calves, ankles and finally to the Yongquan acupoint.

The two energy flows then ascends up the outer side of your legs. The energy flows continue up it reaches the side of your hips. Then each energy flow turns inwards to meet at the Mingmen point, becoming a pulsing energy dot.

From the Mingmen point, the energy dot descends down to the tailbone where it pauses for a quick second, before going forward and up to the front of your body.

When the energy dot passes both your kua, it triggers an energy field that radiates outwards for about a meter to become the Kua Chi Ring.

The energy dot continues to rise past your waist, triggering the formation of the Waist Chi Ring. This ring radiates outwards about 80 centimeters.

The energy dot keeps rising until the shoulder level, causing the Shoulder Chi Ring to form. All 3 Chi Rings formation have been formed.

This completes the creation of the Yang-22 body structure through the use of intention.

The formation of the Yang-22 body structure takes quite a few steps to go through. Each step must be properly carried out in turn.

Once you have practiced all the steps to the point of familiarity and have automated the process you will reach a point where you can perform all the steps in one go.

So instead of taking 1-2 minutes to go through the entire process you now can perform the entire process within a second.

Opening the Chest

Posted on July 16, 2026 by Mushin

In Yang-22 we do not concave the chest, convex the back i.e. slightly sink in the chest while raising the back.

Instead, we open the chest. You might think that this is the same as sinking the chest, raise the back, however, it is not.

Opening the chest is the second step after touching the back of the neck to the collar. Opening the chest allows the internal energy to flow freely.

If you open the chest properly, you can actually do a simple test to check if you have opened up the internal pathway to allow the energy to go down all the way to the ground. So it’s not a “trust me, believe me; it is true” sort of thing.

This is something that another person can feel when they use their hand to press on your chest. Should I tell you what this is?

Perhaps I should not because you may think that you have it when you don’t once you know what it should be like. Better that your teacher do the test, then he will know if you got it right.

Opening the chest leads to the relaxing of your shoulders. This act also affects your back and your elbows, as well the other parts of the body that is downstream of the process of configuring the Yang-22 body structure.

I have mentioned about the process of opening the chest in this post Ancient Bell Body Part 2.

However, let me repeat it again. To open your chest imagine that there is a stone sitting on top of your chest. The weight of the stone causes your chest to open up like two doors separating, allowing the stone to descend to your tailbone.

As the stone descends from the chest, it will pass by your elbows, then your wrists, waist, hip, back, crotch before rising up the back to continue the rest of the body structure creating process.

Since this post is about opening the chest I will touch on the others in separate posts.

The Elbow-Waist Connection

Posted on July 16, 2026 by Mushin

When we play the 22-form the movement of the arms must be coordinated with the movement of the body.

You do this by imagining that the elbow is dropping downwards to connect to the Waist Chi Ring.

Then when you move, whether by moving the elbow first or the Waist Chi Ring first the movement of the arm will be coordinated with that of the waist, and hence the entire body.

This applies whether your elbow is kept low or when it is in a high position when your arm is raised.

If you have a problem keeping the elbow constantly connected to the Waist Chi Ring then each time you complete a technique, pause for a second. Then after checking the Chest Cross, check the elbow-waist connection before continuing the next technique.

Empty Armpits

Posted on July 3, 2026 by Mushin

In Yang-22 we relax the shoulders and sink the elbows. However, we need to be aware of over-sinking the elbows and end up looking like a Southern Shaolin practitioner.

Similarly, we want to avoid under-sinking the elbows and end up with stiff, resisting arms as a result of opening the elbows too widely. This can cause us to have a propensity to resist.

To achieve the correct elbow placement we have to imagine that we are trying to clamp a hot bun between our upper arm and body. If you hold an actual hot bun you will realize that if you hold the bun too tight you will burn your fingers. Too loosely, you will drop the bun.

So the correct way to hold a hot bun is not too firmly nor too loose. If you experiment with this, you will find that your elbows will not sink too much nor flare overly open.

The end result is a principle that is known in Yang-22 as empty armpits. By emptying the armpits you will resist the tendency to resist when being pressured. You will become responsive, without having to purposely response – that is, you yield naturally.

The Eyes

Posted on July 3, 2026 by Mushin

In Yang-22 we train our eyes to see without seeing.

This is achieved through the practice of looking inward even as you are seeing the outside. As you do so, you relax your eyes by practicing Song, San.

In practice this means that the bottom part of your eyes look out even as the top part looks inward. At the same time both sides of the eye relaxes sideways.

In the beginning the practice of seeing this way is easy to forget. You might have to wait until you get the other principles under your belt before you come to the practice of the eyes.

Once you get to the practice of the eyes and begin to see this way, that’s when you will discover how to integrate the inside to the outside. That’s when you begin to have a glimmer of what it feels like to breakthrough to Song, San, Tong, Kong.

Strength Source

Posted on July 2, 2026 by Mushin

Related to the principles of Elongated Wrist, Small Chi Sphere and Opening-Closing is that of Strength Source.

In Yang-22 there are two Strength Source which I shall term as Strength Source (Back) and Strength Source (Palm).

Beginners learn to use the Strength Source (Back) until such time when their proficiency in the control of the Small Chi Sphere enables them to use the Strength Source (Palm) instead.

For combative applications the Strength Source (Palm) is used because it resides in the hand and thus can be used to impart a force into the opponent’s body in the fastest time, given the shorter distance from hand to target.

By comparison, the use of Strength Source (Back) would take a longer time to move the power from the back to target. This is why the Strength Source (Back) is for training the power rather than for combative applications.

In the study of Strength Source you must first achieve the Elongated Wrist without which your power cannot pass through the Wrist Pearl to the hand.

You then need to practice the control of the Small Chi Sphere a lot, in particular the action of inserting the Small Chi Sphere into the Shoulder Chi Ring. Later you should learn to dissipate the Small Chi Sphere across space to an imaginary dot in space.

To train the Strength Source (Back) pay attention to the practice of the principle of Opening-Closing. The opening and closing of your back is like a bellows expanding and contracting to pump air.

9 Bend Pearls

Posted on June 26, 2026 by Mushin

The 9 Bend Pearls is a principle that is taught after one is able to perform the other principles that come before it.

In particular, the practitioner must have achieved the requirements of Song, San, Tong, Kong. These four keys are taught on the first day so one must assiduously cultivate them over the years until a breakthrough is achieved.

At this stage you will then have a physical understanding of what Song, San, Tong, Kong actually mean and feel like when practicing the 22-form. The next step would be to slowly transfer this skill to the practice of push hands.

When Song, San, Tong, Kong is activated together with whole body expansion (like a balloon that is being filled with air) that’s when you add in the 9 Bend Pearls.

To train the 9 Bend Pearls you imagine this energy line moving through your body from the ground up right to your wrist. As you can well imagine there are nine points to channel the energy through, namely from the ground up through the ankle, the knee, the crotch, waist, centre pearl, source strength point, shoulder, elbow and wrist, then out into the target.

In practice you activate the 9 Bend Pearls right at the end of a technique. When you do so you can feel the entire body filling up with energy, expanding out, and using the Small Chi Sphere you can issue the force out (one example of fajing) and into the opponent’s body.

At the end of the power generation you relax and grasp back the Small Chi Sphere. You perform this internally so someone looking at you will not be able to see you doing fajing and then loosening the body after that.

In the beginning you might train to move the ankle pearl first, and then the knee pearl and so on until the wrist pearl. However, this is not correct.

You actually activate all nine pearls at the same time. You do this by activating the process from the centre pearl (that’s the 5th pearl). Think of it as a water hose being filled out quickly with water, which will cause the limp hose to do a whip-like motion in response to being filled out with water.

When you activate the 9 Bend Pearls the energy line running through your body will act in a similar manner. If you place your palm on your training partner’s body he will feel as if you are a balloon inflating very rapidly.

Carrying a Scepter

Posted on June 12, 2026 by Mushin

In Yang-22 our hand holds a Small Chi Sphere. To add to the difficulty of practice, we also must cradle a Chinese scepter (aka ruyi) in our arm.

**Seventh century scroll showing**
**Emperor Xuan of Chen holding a scepter**

We learn to carry the scepter in the 2nd technique of the 22-form, Wild Horse Parts Mane. Even though this is the only technique where this principle is taught, we carry over this practice to the other techniques as well.

Carrying a scepter is important because it helps us to keep our arm stable, sink the elbow properly to the Waist Chi Ring and balance the rooting down of the arm with a counter upward force.