I've watched close to ten minutes of this, the first solo form, the spear vs. dao form, the sparring, and part of the taiji fan. Here's what I see.
I see people moving and hitting "postures" in a robotic way. They are following a choreography that they have memorized. They don't know why they are doing it, other than that "sifu said to move like this...". In the taiji, I see a guy moving slowly, and nothing more. I don't see anything else going on that defines what Taiji is as a method. It is done as performance art and not as a training tool. In the sparring, I see two guys playing hand-and-foot tag, like you can find in any strip-mall family-friendly kuhratty school.
I train Tibetan White Crane, a sister method to the Lama Pai that CLFSean is studying. They both are splinters from an older tradition that dates back to around the 14th century, if you believe the oral history. I'm gonna tell you the secret of White Crane, right here and right now. Geez, now that I'm thinking about it, I might have already said this stuff in an earlier post in this very thread, but I haven't looked at it in a while, so oh well. Anyway, here's the secret: Full Body Engagement. That's it. We train to bring the whole body together, to harness the power and strength of the whole body when we deliver our techniques. That is what White Crane is all about. But here's the kicker: I don't believe we are the only ones who do that. I believe many other systems do that too, or at least strive to, and some do it better than others. Some BELIEVE They are doing it, but have failed, but that's another issue. Anyway, what is unique about White Crane and its sister systems is specifically HOW we go about training to make that full-body connection. We have a specific methodology for teaching and practicing and training and developing that skill. I won't try to describe it here, but we have various exercises and drills and progressions that help us in this endeavor. Our techniques are part of that process, and our forms are also part of that process. But the process begins before all that, with a series of basic exercises, and we then progress to these other things.
What I'm getting at is this: White Crane, and any system that is thoughtfully developed and well put together, has a purpose in everything that we do, it is all designed to aid in the underlying goal of full-body engagement. All of our techniques and forms and drills and exercises contribute to this. They are not performance art, they are not something for "artistic expression", they are not a shopping list of requirements for the next belt test. They are tools that serve a purpose in helping us develop our skills and they were never meant to be put on display and rubber-necked by an uneducated audience. Because in our approach to training, that full body engagement gives you much more to work with than any collection of techniques or collection of forms will, if you don't understand what drives them.
When I watch the forms in that video, I see people doing memorized choreography, clumsily, and without any concept of why they are doing it. I see people doing their techniques without any body engagement. They are relying only on the strength of their arms and shoulders and fail to bring the power of the body into the movement. And I'm not talking about interpreting X movement into a self defense application, that's easy and shallow and also pointless without understanding the foundation. I'm talking about the deeper "WHY" are they doing the form? What foundational skill does that form contribute to? How does practicing that form strengthen that foundational skill? I don't see that at all on that video.
