One drawback of learning Chinese martial arts the traditional way is…. Wait, there is really no traditional way of learning it. How it is taught depends on the teacher.

I should say a common problem with learning CMA is that some teachers do not provide explanations on why they teach a certain way or what we are supposed to learn, to understand, to get from their way of teaching.

For example, I learned the Dong family version of the Yang style form as taught by my teacher, Master Yap, and then practiced it for a long time. He basically taught one key principle and its variation which is to be incorporated into the form. From there the principle is to be used in the techniques when we do push hands.

What Master Yap did not tell is that if we practice that same form over and over again over many years we get to a point where we can play the form in different ways i.e. moving from a fixed way of moving to a freer way of moving.

I term this way of playing R.I.M. as in Reorder, Insert, Mix. What this means is that you can play the form by reordering the sequences or throwing in a technique in between two techniques that were in the original arrangement.

If you want to, you can throw in techniques from other styles. If you play these other styles techniques with Tai Chi flavor a viewer might not be able to tell that it is not a Tai Chi technique.

This is not being different for its own sake. It is a check on your understanding and to see if you are a slave to the form or you have broken out of the constraints of the form.

As the Tai Chi form is a very long sequence of movements trying to learn to R.I.M. is challenging. However, I find that I could teach this idea easily in 6-Blks, 6-LH and 3-WS.

Reorder Example Using 6-LH

Normal sequence
6-LH-1
6-LH-2
6-LH-3
6-LH-4
6-LH-5
6-LH-6

Reordering sequence
6-LH-3
6-LH-4
6-LH-5
6-LH-2
6-LH-1
6-LH-6

Reorder Example Using 3-WS

Normal sequence
3-WS-1
3-WS-2
3-WS-3
3-WS-4
3-WS-5
3-WS-6

Reordering sequence
3-WS-4
3-WS-5
3-WS-1
3-WS-2
3-WS-3
3-WS-6

Mix Example Using 6-Blks, 6-LH, 3-WS
6-Blks-1
6-LH-3
6-Blks-6
3-WS-4
6-Blks-5
6-LH-1
6-LH-6

This practice is not cast in stone. It is a simple and fast method to teach your hands to move quickly and freely with minimal hesitation. It allows you to pick up a range of responses within a short time of practice.

This is only the beginning of the journey. Reflexes will still have to be trained, range and positioning understood, footwork mastered, power added in and developed training responses to a variety of attacks.