Last year I accidentally stumbled across a sort of quasi-fountain of youth. It won't actually make you look one second younger but you will feel and act younger than you truly are. This means nothing to anyone under about forty-five or so, and yet it means quite a bit to people older than that who are perhaps moving slower today and are less physically sure of themselves than they were in the years of their relative youth. Interested? No you are not, because you'd have to invest quite a bit of time and effort in gaining any meaningful benefits from this approach . . . and most people just can't be bothered. I'm not sneering. This is just the way people are. Although I am not talking about Yoga, I recall when I decided to wring from Yoga whatever physical benefits my gradually aging body could win. Looking back on it from years later I recall that it pretty much took me two straight years of effort and experimentation while studying books and instructional DVDs before I developed a hybrid Yoga and Kung-fu style stretching and flexibility routine that really worked to put flexibility back into my aging limbs. What most sticks in my mind is that it was bloody damn hard work. The gym term of "No pain, no gain," is sometimes mocked by trainers who don't really know what they are doing, but the truth of it is that you have to put real and substantial work into a physical regimen in order to gain significant and lasting benefits. It's a real bother. So what did I discover about this time last year (at age 55) that made such a big difference in my life and my exercise routines that I can accurately state that I have discovered a hint of the Fountain of Youth in its practice and results? The Yang Lu Ch'an version of the Yang style taijiquan long form. That's it. The secret is revealed. Run thee forth and purchase a DVD instructional disk and get started . . . or maybe not. I say this because unless you already know a Tai Chi Chuan (old spelling) long form then you probably cannot learn this particular form in any reasonable amount of time -- say -- in under six years of study. I have been semi-seriously dabbling in the martial arts for about forty years now and so I figured the master who promoted this particular system was boasting when he warned that you already needed to know a taiji form before tackling his variation; and then I got into its study and discovered that he had simply been telling the blunt truth. It's just that different and complex, and unlike anything else I've ever attempted to learn. So what makes this taiji long form so different? Every movement is difficult in and of itself. There are no movement cheats contained within it. You have to have both the muscular development and physical control to lift and then move every part of your body in isolation from every other part. Sounds weird? Yeah, well, it feels weird, too. Give this a try. Stand at ease with your feet a shoulder-width apart. Now move your right foot forward about a shoulder width and a half while turning your left foot outward forty-five degrees. In karate or taekwondo this would be a forward or climbing stance. In kung-fu (gong-fu) it would be called a bow stance. In fencing it would be a lunge position. Now turn your forward foot (your right foot) outward, to your right so that it is now ninety degrees to your direction of travel. Yeah . . . that'll leave a mark, but it's doable. Okay, now without shuffling your feet in a cheat movement, transfer all of your body weight onto your right foot and lift your rear foot (your left foot) off the ground and bring it up beside your right knee-cap. It's best for the look of the thing if at this point you neither shriek in agony or fall to the floor. Congratulations you have just completed one of the unique movements in this form. Or actually you have completed one third of the movement as I did not include the independent hand and arms movements nor what you do from that just attained crane stance position. Back in my early thirties I learned my Ban Hou version of the Yang style long form in about six weeks; which is ridiculously fast for learning any taijiquan long form; but I was trying to prove something to myself. So I managed it and then spent the next two years under supervised instruction relearning the form so as to iron out all the errors I had embedded in the pattern by going through the process too damn quickly. This Yang Lu Ch'an version of the Yang style form? It took me one year almost to the day to learn it to my satisfaction from a study of an illustrated textbook and instructional DVD. I wanted to get it right, do you see? So what physical benefits have I gained from a daily practice of this long form? I feel at least fifteen to twenty years younger, my leg muscles are like iron, my body is once again supple, and I move with an aspect of grace and youthful zest that I thought forever gone. So a quasi Fountain of Youth . . . and yet all I was looking to do was to challenge myself by learning something very complex and time consuming. Now here's the ironic part, the fellow (Erle Montaigue) who introduced this system to the Western segment of the world died a few years ago as a relatively young man in his early to middle sixties. He was a severe diabetic and one day his body simply shut down after a training session. It just goes to show that you never can tell, and that there are no guarantees. Now I'm seriously contemplating learning his system's version of the taijiquan sword form. I learned the Communist Chinese standardized form about twenty years ago but haven't bothered with it for the last decade. I just can't help wondering if this fellow's rendition of the form also contains wonders to behold and to master, though. Well . . . after all, you never know.
