Tai chi teaches the student about life.
The student must carry the tai chi with him every second.
During the exercises, the mind, soul, breath, balance, co-ordination,
and various parts of the body are combined
to work simultaneously and spontaneously during each movement.
In other words, the total person is acting totally here and now.
When the class is over, the tai chi does not stop.
(John Lash)
Intermediate syllabus
Intermediate (parts 1-5) cover approximately 20% of the overall
curriculum.
This
syllabus
develops a deeper
understanding of tai chi.
It is a big step up from the beginners syllabus.
At this level, the student should have a serious degree of commitment to the
training and be supplementing lessons with the study of
books.
New material
There are over 90 new topics in the intermediate syllabus, including:
13 postures
Chin na applications/misplacing the bones
Countering a knife
Elbow
Folding
Form application
Freeform grappling
Freeform (non-cooperative)
Massage
Yang Cheng Fu form (sections 2 & 3)
The intermediate level topics are extremely detailed
and thorough.
5 parts
We have broken the intermediate syllabus into 5 parts.
Each part concludes with a full syllabus revision.
Every skill is assessed and graded.
Comprehensive ability must be demonstrated (both solo and with a partner) in
order to make progress.
Development
Students should now understand
the basic
neigong practices and can apply that
internal knowledge to learn the rest of the Yang Cheng Fu form skilfully.
Once the entire form pattern is familiar, the next series of neigong can be
added.
Partner work increases considerably in order to apply the tai chi and
improve sensitivity.
Self defence
Delivering
power without undue commitment is now introduced as a precursor to
fa jing.
There is a greater emphasis upon drills that train habit patterns within the
body.
Whilst students should be able to show a variety of applications for the
different form movements it is essential that they learn to simply express a
viable response to an attack irrespective of whether it conforms to the
accuracy of form.
Providing that the response contains neigong and is appropriate to the
situation, it is tai chi.
All intermediate students train self defence. There are no health-only
students at this grade.
Weapons
Weapons training is a minor part
of our syllabus, but we do ask every student to with sticks in order to develop flexibility in the wrists.
Clothing
Intermediate level students must
wear the class T-shirt, kung fu trousers and a yellow
sash signifying their
grade.
There are five grades within the intermediate syllabus:
yellow,
green,
orange,
blue and red.
More...
Page created 11 October 2000