In the midst of revisting the past I remember the first thing I was taught when I visited Master L to begin my learning of the 22-form.

It was footwork. A very simple turn body, shift weight to front leg, back to rear leg, turn body, step forward then repeat.

Back then I didn’t pay much attention to it as it was similar to the type of footwork I had learned in Cheng Manching’s style. But now looking back, Master L had taught me how to do the weight shifting using the 2/4 Dots.

Fortunately, though I didn’t practice this exercise I still got to learn how to use the 2/4 Dots by learning the 22-form. At first glance the 2/4 Dots seemed simple enough to grasp.

However, to do it properly and to use them to control your balance such that you have single leg balance even when you appear to have your weight over both legs, aye, that’s the challenge.

There is a transition between Fan Through Back to Turn Body, Chop with Fist whereby you turn your left foot in such that your legs are adducting before you turn both feet outwards again. At this point your balance is on the 3 Dot.

From here you want to keep your balance on your left leg and shift your right leg to the rear, before you shift your weight to the right leg to form a right forward stance. Typically, after turning both feet outwards it is perfectly normal to shift the weight to the left leg to allow you to take the weight off the right leg, allowing you to shift it.

However, when I saw Master L did the movement he just shifted his right leg without moving his weight to his left leg. My logical mind said that this is not possible and try as I may I could not do it. But then I decided to follow the instructions on how to do this transition. And sure enough, with sufficient practice I could do it the way Master L did it.

The 2/4 Dots are really important to learn properly. Once you grasp them you can easily move about as if you are weightless. This is one of the reasons why our Yang style is characterized as a small frame form.