I honestly don’t know who invented this form, if it was Wu Chien Hao, or another Wu Family genius of tai chi, but eventually when you understand the basics of the Wu Square Form of Tai Chi, then you are doing something really good to train your structure for the smoother transitions required when you study the Round Form. The square form has the nuts and bolts training for your structure and energy system in it, trainings that are needed for a beginner or next level student of tai chi. If you are a beginning student or novice, then I recommend paying attention to your postures, body structure, and feeling the openings and closings of meridians. Throughout the form you will notice the Wu walk and how it pertains to your root structure, but the next level of growth comes from HOLDING your postures.
That’s right I said HOLDING your postures to awaken the dormant Qi inside your meridians. The square form can make an older student with soft tissue weaknesses develop strength and decrease their pain exponentially. It is easier for less gifted, engineering and mechanical minded, but the postures really explode with Qi circulation, if you focus on holding the postures, and slowing down the speed of your 108 movements.
Traditionally practice in Tai Chi lasted for 3 or more hours in a day. To study was a sincere commitment indeed, our Western minds move so fast because of technology and emotional drama. SLOW DOWN and put your mind fully inside your body. Inside each of these beautiful postures is an opportunity to make yourself much stronger, to internally give a workout to the inside of your body. When you slow these forms down and pause, hold the form, circulate the Qi, and sincerely keep your root while transitioning to the next posture, then you are really getting the fullness of this form. It can do wonderous things for you. The weak and the ill will tell you that they feel stronger while doing this art. It takes my mind, off my problems, and helps me transition to being fully present in my life.
It is really hard to be dissociative if we are fully present in our body, fully empowered, and unafraid of the outer world because internally we are strong. Problems just seem to get smaller when you take the time to practice and be fully present with the process of self-healing, self-awareness, psychic cleansing of the heart-mind, and staying in your Tan Tien. Life was not meant to be lived fully in your head. Internal arts bring the gift of integration, fully integrating your body and mind into one unified Qi. But integration merely begins from holding the postures to open and awaken the psychic energy system.
Square form at first didn’t interest me, to be brutally honest, because I started learning Round Form first. The movements in Round form are so amazing, it is my favorite form of all time, no contest at all. But the Square form can really develop Peng and awaken the Yang Meridians, the subtlety of the Square form was not found until I slowed the postures and transitions. Learning Round Form, I focused on doing the move right, and making smooth transitions into the next posture. Learning Square Form, I learned to awaken the peng energy similar to Yang Style which is a larger form of Tai Chi. Because you hold the postures, it helps people to strengthen their root. As your Tan Tien grows, so does your concept of movement from that center. Square Form is about integrating the structure and strengthening it to get the most out of the Round Form which should be learned later.
In the end, my resistance dropped and I found the beauty of the Square Form, holding single whip for several minutes, really slowing down the form, and speed of transitions has helped me to see how to properly teach this form along with meridian awareness. I could tell which posture worked which specific meridian or weakness in my energetic system. I needed Square Form to be able to really appreciate Round form.
So now I understand why The Wu Federation teaches Square Form first. To create more structure and awareness of the openings and closings of your meridians.
Let’s get started,
Brian