# First time in a long time



## Xue Sheng (Dec 27, 2018)

You know, I realized over Christmas, this is the first time, in a long time, that I have actually enjoyed training taijiquan....a lot... It is to the point,, for the first time in years, were I feel something is wrong if I do not train my forms I am working on them 2 or more times a day. One day I even did the Wu form I am working on 10 times in one day. The Sun has gotten up to 6 times, and I do both multiple times every day, on average, the minimum I am doing these forms is 8 times a day; 4 Sun, 4 Wu

I am working on a Sun style short form, working to remember my Wu style competition form I once knew, meeting with a push hands group once a week. I'm enjoying the heck out of this, and there seems to be no need for anything else at this point, no Xingyi, no JKD, no Chin, nothing...just Sun and Wu taijiquan.

Started, just started, to figure out the power and how it is generated with the follow step in Sun Style, also figuring out some interesting ways to generate power and some applications in the Wu style too.

Two nights ago, feeling a bit guilty and ungrateful, I decided that I should probably do my Yang forms again, since I have been doing them for over 20 years. Started the long form, just could not get into it at all, stopped and did Sun and Wu and it was all good.

Also discovered that the Wu competition form I did, and I am once again working on, is a combination of Northern and Southern Wu style that was developed by Li Bing Xi. I knew it came form Li Bing Xi, I just did not know it was a combination of Northern and Southern Wu.


----------



## ballen0351 (Dec 27, 2018)

I don't know what 90% of that means but congrats


----------



## ChenAn (Jan 3, 2019)

In my line we tend to practice one iteration of the form starting from 30 minute to an hour. This give both gong fu and health benefits.

So in my book it’s not about quantity but quality. Also there must be safe way to test your skill under pressure but without injuries. We have verity partner work  with semi or non cooperative drills, wrestling and etc. 

Footwork is also very important but rarely taught by taiji teacher. Without it pretty much everything’s useless .

Good luck with your study!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## VPT (Jan 4, 2019)

I just can't tell whether your Wu is being a 吴,  Wu being a 武, 吴 being a 武, 武 being a 吴, Wu being a Wuu, Wuu being a Wu or actually just Wu being a normal Wu. 

My sentence only seems like a whole lot of woo-woo now.


----------



## Xue Sheng (Jan 4, 2019)

Woohoo.....its _wú not wǔ and it is a combination of Northern wooOO and Southern wooOO and not wOOooOO and I am rather enjoying it Yippee Yahoo

吳家 or 吳氏; wújiā or wúshì 
not 
武氏 or 武/郝氏; Wǔshì or wǔ/hǎoshì

and the Sun is not the Sun its Sun (_孙氏) which is pronounced Swin which is confusing


----------



## Gerry Seymour (Jan 4, 2019)

You two have lost your danged minds.

Or I have.


----------



## wanderingstudent (Jan 4, 2019)

Sometimes a step away is the best thing you can do.  The way I read your post, you seem unindated with a lot of material; and burned out.  Having paused, you were able to reflect and refocus.


----------



## VPT (Jan 4, 2019)

gpseymour said:


> You two have lost your danged minds.
> 
> Or I have.



There are two different styles of Taiji made by guys who had similar sounding names, 吴 and 武. They are pronounced with different tones in Chinese, but without the diacritic marks displaying tone, both are romanized as "Wu". The tone in 武 takes slightly longer to pronounce, so in principle one could write it out like "Wuu" ("wOOooOO") to differentiate them. (This is actually already done officially with the names of Chinese provinces of 山西 and 陕西, which are romanised as Shanxi and Shaanxi, respectively.)

The name Sun is not pronounced like the shiny thing Sun in the sky, but either as "swin" like 学生 said (if you like to labialize the sibilant) or like "soon", but with a shorter vowel - like "so(o)n" or "son", but then some people pronounce that word like "san" which is not like 孙 anymore, but more like 三, which is number three. Pliiz samwan riform Inglish orthographi.


----------



## Xue Sheng (Jan 4, 2019)

All my pronunciations are those of a Beijingren (Běijīngrén 北京人) that is what I hear at home.


----------



## VPT (Jan 8, 2019)

Xue Sheng said:


> All my pronunciations are those of a Beijingren (Běijīngrén 北京人) that is what I hear at home.



I spent an exchange semester in Shanghai. I never managed to comprehend a single thing they ever talked to me in Mandarin, not to mention the local variety of Wu (pun not intended, but not avoided either) Chinese. Only when I went to Beijing for Christmas the skies opened and suddenly I comprehended everything. (Unfortunately the sky opened only for a day, then the smog got back again...) The same thing happened to me in Taiwan, all of the sounds came out so nice and clear. "Tsii le maaa?"  

The Beijing accent is the basis of the official pronunciation of Mandarin (but not of the grammar necessarily) with its three-way distribution of places of articulation for fricatives and affricates; a feature which does not necessarily appear in all dialects. There's also rhotic codas aplenty which are otherwise not present in other variants of Mandarin; especially the more masculine and working-class sociolects of Beijingese can be infuriatingly (or enchantingly) muddled, it's like a pirate eating a too hot steamed bun. I just love that manly murmuring.


----------



## Xue Sheng (Jan 8, 2019)

VPT said:


> I spent an exchange semester in Shanghai. I never managed to comprehend a single thing they ever talked to me in Mandarin, not to mention the local variety of Wu (pun not intended, but not avoided either) Chinese. Only when I went to Beijing for Christmas the skies opened and suddenly I comprehended everything. (Unfortunately the sky opened only for a day, then the smog got back again...) The same thing happened to me in Taiwan, all of the sounds came out so nice and clear. "Tsii le maaa?"
> 
> The Beijing accent is the basis of the official pronunciation of Mandarin (but not of the grammar necessarily) with its three-way distribution of places of articulation for fricatives and affricates; a feature which does not necessarily appear in all dialects. There's also rhotic codas aplenty which are otherwise not present in other variants of Mandarin; especially the more masculine and working-class sociolects of Beijingese can be infuriatingly (or enchantingly) muddled, it's like a pirate eating a too hot steamed bun. I just love that manly murmuring.



My mandarin is awful, but my pronunciation got better in Beijing when I started watching them talk. Their mouths hardly move and a whole lot of sound comes out. When I did the same, they actually started understanding me


----------



## Gerry Seymour (Jan 8, 2019)

Xue Sheng said:


> My mandarin is awful, but my pronunciation got better in Beijing when I started watching them talk. Their mouths hardly move and a whole lot of sound comes out. When I did the same, they actually started understanding me


Man, Southerners in the US should be naturals at speaking Mandarin.


----------

