There’s no escape from the basics, more so if you are learning GM Wei Shuren’s Tai Chi.

A long time ago my teacher said never, never throw away the basics. The better you know your basics and understand the connection between each and every basic, the more refined your skill will be.

However, its too easy to forget the basics especially if you practice different arts. So if Tai Chi is your chosen poison make sure you make the basics part of your movements before you mess around with other arts. Even then practice regularly and check, and check again that your basics are still there.

Everyone knows that you must first learn to Sung when you do your form. Sung is the basis for main things to come, chief among them the one thing everyone loves and can’t get enough of, FAJING.

For me this is my conclusion for the importance of Sung. Sung is the first gateway to achieve different objectives. So we must somehow, by hook or by crook, get to Sung. But what does Sung mean?

Sung can mean different things to different practitioners depending on their level of mastery. For us let’s not become overly obsessed with Sung to the exclusion of everything else. Like I said its a means to an end, a tool.

We begin with a simple attainment of Sung that everyone can master……. well, almost everyone, as long as you are prepared to do the practice carefully and diligently as long as you need to get there.

The easiest way to learn to Sung is by practicing Elongated Wrist. Basically, Elongated Wrist is to physically keep your hand and wrist in a straight line, well, its actually more than that. It is more like water surging out from the wrist through the hand and the pressure of the water straightens out the wrist, elongating it.

So keeping the wrist-hand straight is not it. Keeping the flow of energy from the wrist to the hand is it. But this can be abstract so beginners can miss the point. Easier to tell them to imagine a bracelet cuffed around the wrist to straighten the wrist and hand.

If you keep practicing this way, and you keep at it, you should come to a point where you feel as if you have no hand. You can see your hand but the feeling is like the hand is not there. Well, if you want to feel your hand just bend your wrist and you can feel your hand again.

So if you can “lose” your hand you can say that you have achieved a level of Sung in your hand. If this Sung is real, not imagined, then when someone grasped your wrist with their hand he should feel a huge surge of power coming right at him. He should not feel as if you are trying to push your wrist at him.

This is why I say this is like losing your hand. Your partner grasped your hand, he can see your hand, but he does not feel your hand pushing back, he just feels this energy.

The practice of the Elongated Wrist is not an isolated practice. Whether we are forming an open palm, a fist or a hook hand we must, we must have the Elongated Wrist. This means that when we practice the form (whether 22-form, 108-form or 37-form) you must have the Elongated Wrist present from beginning to end.

And that basically is why the Elongated Wrist principle is so important.