Notes on 37 Forms workshop by Peter Gravett 20th Jan 2008, Archway Academy.

The intensive was entitled the 37 forms, this being the sum of the individual forms that comprise the 108 movements of Wu’s style Tai Chi Chuan. Peter had the group practise the forms individually rather than in the contiguous sequence of the 108 movements, but observing the order in which the forms first appear in the 108 movements. So for instance the form “Punch” was practised before the form “wave hands like clouds ” because that is the order they appear in the form, rather than group them say by stance.

The individual forms as exercises were played, where appropriate, both left and right, or forward and backward. This produced some interesting results and quite a few laughs as participants struggled to co-ordinate the form on ‘the wrong side’. It proved as challenging mentally, just visualising the exercise as it was physically.

Some forms like Brush knee and repulse monkey complement one another providing both forward and backward stepping and left and right upper body and hand movements. Others, however, like grasp birds tail done starting on the right rather than left or wave hands like cloud proved a might trickier to perform the other way round.

Peter often referred to the forms by their original mandarin names and gave the various translations, illustrating how the name of the form had relevance to its shape or action. In some cases he alluded to cultural references such as the form “Needle at Sea bottom ”, which could have been derived from the classic tale of the Chinese Immortal – Monkey, and the tale of his Journey to the West, where Monkey managed to retrieve a magic needle (which could turn into a long pole) from the river bed, after his fight with the river king.

A further illustration of the ‘all round’ style of Peter’s teaching was illustrated when he was talking about the form “Strike opponents ears with Fist ”. This is in fact directed at the acupuncture point Tai Yang, which is on the temple between the corner of the eye and the top of the external ear. If struck hard it will cause unconsciousness. This led during the break to a lively discussion about acupuncture points and strikes.

Some of the form exercises were done as stepping sequences e.g. “parting wild horse’s mane” or “Brush knee ” and one set of forms was combined as a sequence referred to as the “beautiful kicks”. This was a series of kick forms which can be strung together to give a continuous practise set.

When asked about the number of repetitions for the forms as exercises Peter replied that the traditional view was that it should be in multiples of 3 for all male class, multiples of 2 for all female class, so 6,12, 18,24 repetitions are all good for mixed classes. However he was at pains to emphasise that the number of repetitions should not be so many that the muscles and joints end up getting strained and Chi getting blocked.

It is hoped that Peter can be persuaded to come back in the autumn to give another highly enjoyable workshop.