Wealth is health. Regular practice of Tai Chi is good for you. It gives gentle massage, trains your ability to concentrate and if you are game, use the techniques to play push hands, treat it like a game of physical mahjong if you like. But no gambling OK?
Today with short attention span trying to play a long form can be daunting. The way we play the long form will easily take at least an hour to go through.
OK, for me I can easily finish it in 10 minutes and still keep the principles intact at that speed. This is because I know the form well enough.
But sometimes when I don't have the time or the space guess what I do? That's right, I just practice one technique repeatedly and that's my Tai Chi practice.
Or alternatively play part of a sequence of the form (whether from long form or short form) and if your form has the key principles in it you still get the same type of workout you would get from doing the long form.
For example, in Grandmaster Wei Shuren's 22 form there are, well, 22 techniques. I can play just a few movements from it repeatedly and get a good workout.
Instead of 22 movements I just shorten it to 8 movements for one round or 14 movements for a 2 rounds sequence.
One Round Sequence
1) Beginning Posture
2) Left Wild Horse Parts Mane
3) Play Pipa
4) Repulse Monkey (left, right)
5) Grasp Sparrow's Tail (left, right)
6) Cloud Hands
7) Single Whip
8) Abbreviated Closing
Two Rounds Sequence
1) Beginning Posture
2) Left Wild Horse Parts Mane
3) Play Pipa
4) Repulse Monkey (left, right)
5) Grasp Sparrow's Tail (left, right)
6) Cloud Hands
7) Single Whip
8) Left Wild Horse Parts Mane
9) Play Pipa
10) Repulse Monkey (left, right)
11) Grasp Sparrow's Tail (left, right)
12) Cloud Hands
13) Single Whip
14) Abbreviated Closing
One round takes about 4 minutes, two rounds 8 minutes. If you play it 6 times you get about 24 minutes worth of exercise.
Note - I actually play the form a bit faster here so it won't put the viewer to sleep. I also exaggerated some movements so that the flavor looks more interesting.
Otherwise, the form will look very boring as the external movements makes uninteresting viewing though to those practicing the form the exciting part is actually the feelings that are running through the entire body as the mind is playing out the practice script mentally, you know the internal feel ………..