University of California Davis Video Taichi Movement Analysis

this is a 6-700 word evaluation of your own movement work in two exercises – one solo, and one group – that you make while analyzing a video of your own movement.

Some guidelines for assessment of movement (from video):

Getting to the principles is a good aim but make sure you focus on the techniques in this exercise.

Work with two partners. Use a cameraphone to record 1-2 minutes of a solo exercise, and 1-2 minutes of a partner exercise.

Download the recording of you doing this solo and this partner exercise.

Watch it later on and analyze the movement, making sure to note both the places where you think you are doing it well, and where you think it could be improved.

Think about:

• Description of your movement
• Observations on your movement
• Analysis of the movement
• What are the keypoints

[eg a keypoint for kaimen sequence is coordinating breath and movement. OR a keypoint for stances and steps is lining up the heels of the feel.]

• What are the principles

[eg a principle could be ‘complementarity’, OR ‘the softest is the strongest’, OR ‘right to go left’

• How do the keypoints and principles contribute to the technique

[a technique could be ‘adhering hands’, OR ‘qi activation’, OR ‘daoyin breathing’]

• Are you hitting the keypoints?
• if so/if not what are the advantages and disadvantages for carrying out the technique?
• What are the effects or affects of carrying out the technique?
• How do the effects/affects embody a principle?
• how does your ability to hit the keypoints/carry out the technique enable development of alignment, and breath, and energy (or you could start with ‘not hitting the keypoints or carrying out parts of the technique’ and feeling the effects/affects that way), OR your better understanding of the principles through embodying them?

The solo exercise is called Shou befa, the first movement is two hands bent forward in a small dragon posture, the second movement is circling the right hand backwards in cat posture, the third movement is pushing forward with your right hand in a big dragon posture. Then doing the same thing for the left hand side. the key point is not moving the back leg and hip. keeping hip facing forward, and no matter drawing the circle with hand, or pushing forward, the hip should not turn. As circling the hand, I need to turn my shoulder and my whole arm to the back.

the partner exercise is called roll away with ward off. We did it as four ways. When my partner hands came forward to my clavicle， I need to use sunpang to wipe my partner’s hand off. The four ways are single hand, double hands, cross hands and catch the reaction. The key point is wipe the partner’s hand all the way from the arm to the hand ankle. Also need to keep the wiping light, we can’t wipe very strong. Otherwise we may loose our balance.

The key point doing these two exercise are keeping breath and every movement should be light and slow.