Weapon Forms (Tai Chi)

My Father teaches Tai Chi in Arizona, and he recommends this DVD for the Tai Chi straight sword.
https://ymaa.com/publishing/dvd/internal/Tai_Chi_Sword_Beginners

As far as purchasing the sword itself, You could either start with a wooden training sword, or a collapsible training sword. Both are available on Amazon for around 20 bucks, or you can find somewhere locally if Amazon is not available in your location.

Staff is a personal favorite of mine, but I've always wanted to try and get into a sword form. I hear the sword and the Fan forms are similar.

Good luck!

Sirch Nayr wrote: My Father teaches Tai Chi in Arizona, and he recommends this DVD for the Tai Chi straight sword.
https://ymaa.com/publishing/dvd/internal/Tai_Chi_Sword_Beginners

As far as purchasing the sword itself, You could either start with a wooden training sword, or a collapsible training sword. Both are available on Amazon for around 20 bucks, or you can find somewhere locally if Amazon is not available in your location.

Staff is a personal favorite of mine, but I've always wanted to try and get into a sword form. I hear the sword and the Fan forms are similar.

Good luck!

This looks great! Is the rest of the series good? I see they have a bunch of other weapons and non-weapons Tai Chi DVDs

I wish I could say, but I know my dad orders from them a lot, and they have a pretty large following amongst the tai chi, qi gong, community. I'd try one and move on if it's helpful

I have a few of the qi qong meditation books I'm going to dive into soon!

Jamie Stick wrote: But why? Tai Chi, as I understand, is a spiritual practice that had a martial parallel which has since been lost. I don't know how accurate that is with historical information we have on the origin of various martial arts.

The origin of Tai Chi, before it was named Tai Chi, can be traced back into legend 3.000 years ago, the 'modern' traditional styles as is practiced today can be traced back to 1670. Tai Chi began as an material arts, but developed more and more into way of becoming your own medication, an art of health stimulation.

Qi-Gong on the other hand, is older, not sure how much older though.. It started as an art health stimulation, and later developed material art applications. The way of development of Qi-Gong is the 'reverse route' of Tai Chi in the timeline

Both share similarities and maybe a similar origin, but I am not sure about that last one.

~

https://www.alz.org/ct/documents/c4.pdf
https://taichiforhealthinstitute.org/history-of-tai-chi-2/

https://www.shen-nong.com/eng/lifestyles/chinese_qi_gong_history.html

Might I also suggest a fan form eventually? I think there are a few in T'ai Chi, and they're lovely weapons.

JamesSand wrote: Notwithstanding arguments about how to spell or say Tai chi.....
(Which makes searching for the topic a bit tedious )

More or less against the advice of my instructor, I'm thinking of starting a weapon form for Tai Chi - Does anyone have any experience with this? Which weapon forms do you enjoy the most? Where/What companies make good tai chi weapons?

I'm looking at straight sword or staff.

Possibly determined by my ability to get a nice/affordable straight sword

Yeah, I pratice the Yang form and learning this form with Fan. There is a video helps you with your firsts steps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4Z4sQNQtJM

It is highly recommended that you look for a master to learn. Despite what people think, Tai-chi is a form of Kung Fu, it is focused on manipulating energies that can come to help with healing and other martial techniques.