In the 22-form after Wild Horse Parts Mane we move on to the technique of White Crane Spreads Wings, followed by left, right then left Brush Knee, Twist Step.

For the purpose of training the 22-form as a series of sequences I have arranged the following as Sequence 2 for training the principles :-

I will term this as the Right Side of the sequence. Begin with right Brush Knee, Twist Step posture. This is the posture in which your left hand is in a palm strike and right hand is a lower block.

Imagine an arrow coming at you. Use move back 3 passes to shift your weight to your left leg, Bring up both hands to prepare to intercept the arrow. As the arrow comes into range, both hands intercept the arrow, lead it to your right, turning your body as you do so.

Guide and let the arrow go. Guide the arrow to fly behind you, to fly back towards from whence it came. As you do so, you shift your weight onto your right leg.

Bring up your left leg and step out. At the same time, your right hand comes towards your body, then turn the right palm up in readiness to perform Press. Your left hand comes towards your body, palm down, then gets ready to move your left middle finger to meet your right wrist.

Place your left foot on the ground, shift your weight onto your left leg and perform half step Press by bringing your right foot up half a step.

Place your right foot on the ground, shift your weight back onto the right leg. Now your right arm performs Pluck, Split then Rollback in one smooth continuous motion. As your right hand comes towards your body while performing Rollback, your left palms with fingers pointing forward, goes out to meet your upturned right palm. Your left fingers goes out via your right hand tiger’s mouth.

Your right hand then sweeps from right to left to perform Pluck. Towards the end of Pluck, you turn your body to the right, your left hand comes back to your chest, holds a Small Chi Sphere.

Now you perform left hand Pluck-Stomp by having your left hand pluck and quickly lift up your left foot to stomp down with your left forefoot. The energy goes downwards on the left side and rises on the right side. As you feel the anti-clockwise spiral energy rises on the right side, your right hand spirals upwards in anti-clockwise manner.

Your right hand stops spiraling once the palm faces forward (your right hand is at about the height of your right ear). Use your intent to imagine that your right elbow is propped against a wall to reinforce it. Next imagine a vertical wall is extending forward from your right shoulder. This is the energy of Elbow and Shoulder. Unlike the other Yang styles our Elbow and Shoulder Strokes are not physical striking techniques.

Moving on, you rotate your right hand that is facing forward in a counter-clockwise manner. This will cause your body to turn to face the right, bring your left hand up to your right wrist where your left middle finger lightly connects to your right wrist (you can choose to touch or not touch your right wrist) and your left leg / foot with the forefoot touching the ground lightly will have the left heel turn clockwise from 5 o’clock to 6 o’clock if your left foot is stepping on the face of a clock.

Next, your right hand performs Pluck as it lowers from your shoulder height until your right hand is poised on top of the Kua Chi Ring. Your left middle fingers and thus, the left hand is attached to the right wrist. At this point, you are introduced to a very important fajing principle which is stated as “bend elbow, advance body; straighten elbow, retreat body“.

This principle is practiced in this manner – your right hand squeezes the Small Chi Sphere to form an empty fist. Next, bring the right fist towards your body. This is the principle of “bend elbow, advance body“.

Once your right fist with palm facing downwards is near to your body, you rotate the palm of your fist clockwise so that the palm is now facing upwards. Your body and right arm are now in a compressed state, ready to fajing.

Next, relax and let your right fist go out towards the height of your Shoulder Chi Ring. As your right arm goes out, your body retreats in compliance to “straighten elbow, retreat body“. Your move your right fist out of the mouth of your chest.

If you practice “bend elbow, advance body; straighten elbow, retreat body” to a certain level of familiarity you can get more practice by emphasizing this principle in Wild Horse Parts Mane – the paragraph below is from the Sequence 1 post, however, I have indicated the part where you can insert this principle into it.

Sequence 1 – Wild Horse Parts Mane – The right arm continues to cradle the scepter. The left hand now changes from open palm to empty fist. As it does so, turn your left arm inward towards the centre of your body. When your left arm reaches the centre, bring your left arm upwards to where the mouth of your chest is, then turn your left fist so that the palm faces upwards (THIS IS WHERE YOU APPLY “BEND ELBOW, ADVANCE BODY; STRAIGHTEN ELBOW, RETREAT BODY), and then extend your left fist out. Just before your left fist goes out, you visualize the energetic path of Peng and Ji for your left arm to move along. Your weight is on your right leg.

Coming back to Brush Knee, Twist Step – your right fist with palm facing up now traces a circle counterclockwise from 6 o’clock to 9 o’clock. When your fist is turning from 12 o’clock to 9 o’clock you move your right arm slightly forward as if inserting the fist into the circle that you are tracing.

On completion of this movement, you allow your left hand to drop from its position at the right wrist down until the left palm is on top of the Kua Chi Ring. As your left hand descends, you begin to squeeze the Small Chi Sphere. Note – once familiar you can do this motion the moment your right fist begins to trace the circle. The way described here is for beginners to ensure that they perform each movement properly.

We now begin left hand Brush Knee, Twist Step. The right fist at the Shoulder Chi Ring and the left fist at the Kua Chi Ring; both hands open up to insert the Small Chi Spheres into the respective Chi Rings.

Now turn the right palm upwards, rotating the right thumb from 10 o’clock to 2 o’clock. The left palm is caused by the rotating of the right palm to turn the left thumb anti-clockwise from 3 o’clock to 12 o’clock.

Bring the right hand towards the upper right side of your chest while extending the left arm forward with fingers pointing to a spot in the distance. Both arms act as if cranking up a lever upwards which causes your weight to shift entirely onto your right leg. You can now lift your left knee up to your waist height.

Your left knee comes up to where your left hand is. Turn your left hand clockwise towards as if brushing it, lowering your left knee as you do so at which point your left hand passes over the lowering knee.

Place your left heel on the ground. Now turn your right palm anti-clockwise with thumb turning from 2 o’clock to 8 o’clock. As you do so, your right hand is inserting the Small Chi Sphere into your body, taking it back and placing it onto the Shoulder Chi Ring (like how it is practiced in the Commencement Form technique).

In your intent, create the Vertical Upright 3-Passes. After this your left hand grasps the Kua Chi Ring and remind yourself that your right hand is holding the Shoulder Chi Ring. When you are ready, shift your weight forward from right leg to left leg using the 2-4 Dots as your hands move the 3 Chi Rings forward. Just before you push the 3 Chi Rings you can also apply the principle of ……. tada! ….. “bend elbow, advance body; straighten elbow, retreat body” again.

On completion of the left Brush Knee, Twist Step movement, mentally quiet yourself and check / balance your posture using the Chest Cross mechanism.

To be continued…..

Someone asked me about online teaching of the 22-form. This is an interesting question in that yes, I have thought about it and that’s about it as I recognize the challenge of trying to teach the 22-form on an online platform.

Until the pandemic came along I was teaching the Dong style version of the Yang and Wu (Hao) long form on a 1-to-1 basis. What I found was that a claim of high interest mostly did not correspond to putting in sufficient time to really get into the gist of the art. If it was that difficult to learn these two forms well, I can’t imagine how much more difficult it would be to learn the 22-form.

During the COVID-19 pandemic I also tried teaching via Zoom a more external type of art based on Pok Khek Kuen. I found that as simple and straightforward as this art is, I can only sigh and shake my head when it comes to making progress. Again, learning is fun but without practice all the information will not translate into skill.

After the pandemic, I found that I didn’t miss teaching so I did not start teaching again. Instead, the only person I am teaching informally using WhatsApp is Paul. Even then trying to teach Paul is a challenge. Since I do it for the fun of it I carried on. However, to force Paul to get somewhere it had become necessary to get him to submit a weekly practice video as the one sure way to make him practice regularly.

I have been considering the question of how would I teach the 22-form regardless of whether teaching in person or online. One conclusion I reached is not to teach the 22-form as an entire form but as a series of sequences.

In order to make the sequences a more rounded practice we should practice both sides. For example, we only practice a right side (I call it right side since the right hand is held up) White Crane Spreads Wings but not a left side. For sequence practice, we can start from the half step right Press posture, change to right White Crane Spreads Wings and finish with a left Brush Knee, Twist Step.

Repeat for the other side by changing from left Brush Knee, Twist Step to change to half step left Press posture (the left side version of half step Press is not found in the 22-form), left White Crane Spreads Wings, finish off with right Brush Knee, Twist Step.

This sequence of three movements is to be practiced repeatedly to gain basic familiarity with the core principles. Once the foundation is there, you can refine the principles to extract the internal skills.

Wild Horse Parts Mane is the 2nd technique in the 22-form. You can learn the following principles from this technique :-

1. Elongated wrists
2. Both shoulders moving in tandem
3. Elbows connected to Waist Chi Ring
4. Connecting the Small Chi Spheres to the Chi Rings
5. Unifying the hand to foot
6. Controlling balance via 2-4 Dots
7. Turning using the 3 Chi Rings
8. Using the Energetic Forces of Peng, An, Ji, Cai (Ward-Off, Push, Press, Pluck)
9. Using the 3-Passes
10. Back sticking to the Chi
11. Head radiant glow
12. Chest Cross Talk
13. A moment of Quietude

Breakdown of the technique for sole focused practice of the technique :-

Begin in the completed left Wild Horse Parts Mane technique. It goes without saying that your hands are connected to your arms via Elongated Wrist structure. Both hands are each holding a Small Chi Sphere.

Shift your weight from leading left leg to right leg using Move Back 3 Passes. As you do so, lower your right hand and let this raise your left hand, like a seesaw. This action also reinforces connecting your elbows to the Waist Chi Ring.

Turn your body to the left; your left foot turns outwards. As you do so, the right hand rotates a sphere (about the size of a soccer ball). As your right hand pushes forward, it causes your left hand to come back. Shift your weight onto the left leg as you continue to rotate the sphere, this time your right hand rotates the sphere downwards and your left hand rotates upwards as if both hands are tracing a vertical circle.

Bring your right foot up to beside the left foot upon the completion of the rotation of the hands. As you do so both hands are holding up the soccer sized sphere (you compress it to make it smaller). Just before you placed your right foot on the ground gently and lightly, both palms become empty fists. Read this post Palm, Fist, Hook for description on how to change from open palm to empty fist. So now you have three Chi Spheres – two Small Chi Spheres in each fist and one soccer size Chi Sphere between two fists.

Gently bend your knees and fill out your back as you do so. The right hand moves down towards the Kua Chi Ring while the left hand moves up towards the Shoulder Chi Ring. Now the right fist opens up to insert the Small Chi Sphere into the Kua Chi Ring and the left Small Chi Sphere is inserted into the Shoulder Chi Ring. Your body is in a compressed state, like a compressed spring (feel it but don’t force it).

Use your intent to connect your right hand that has connected to the Kua Chi Ring to connect to your right foot. You do so as your right hand inserts the Small Chi Sphere into the Kua Chi Ring. As the insertion is happening your right arm imagines that it is cradling a scepter. The act of doing so helps your right hand to lift the right foot off the ground slightly, allowing it to be ready to step out.

Next your void right foot takes a step forward, gently landing on the front. Shift your weight from left leg to right leg using 2-4 dots. Once your balance is on right leg, turn your body from left to right as if turning the three unified Chi Rings. Your right hand is separating from the left hand which is performing Cai (pluck). The movement is completed when your body is facing the front. At this juncture you have compose yourself with a moment of quietude and use the Chest Cross Talk to check your body’s state of expansion and alignment before continuing on.

The right arm continues to cradle the scepter. The left hand now changes from open palm to empty fist. As it does so, turn your left arm inward towards the centre of your body. When your left arm reaches the centre, bring your left arm upwards to where the mouth of your chest is, then turn your left fist so that the palm faces upwards, and then extend your left fist out. Just before your left fist goes out, you visualize the energetic path of Peng and Ji for your left arm to move along. Your weight is on your right leg.

Next use the Move Back 3 Passes to move your weight from right leg to left leg. Your arms come back towards your body, closing as your hands come closer to your body. Then you bring your left fist towards your chest, turning the left fist from palm up to palm down position. At the same time the right palm turns into the palm down position. Your left hand changes from empty fist to open palm, inserts the Small Chi Sphere onto the Shoulder Chi Ring. Your right hand grasps the Kua Chi Ring. Simultaneously, your back sticks to the Chi, your head radiates and the Vertical Upright 3 Passes is formed.

Shift your weight back onto from left leg the right left. As you do so, both your arms push the 3 Chi Rings forward. At the conclusion, pause and check your Chest Cross.

Repeat for the other side.

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.